How the film "Outcast" was filmed: footage from filming and 27 interesting facts about the film (28 photos)

The drama "Cast Away" starring Tom Hanks was released in 2000, and it quickly became a truly cult favorite. The film shows a simple, at first glance, story of a man who finds himself completely alone on a desert island, where he is trying to survive and find salvation.





1. Work on the film began with screenwriter William Broyles Jr., an Oscar nominee for Best Adapted Screenplay (Apollo 13).

When writing the script, William decided that he himself should experience everything that his hero would experience. Therefore, without hesitation, he went to one of the islands, which is located near Mexico, where he was in complete isolation for a couple of weeks.



William caught fish and fried it over the fire. This helped him better understand his character and catch inspiration for writing the script. But the most interesting thing is that it was on this island that he found an old volleyball, thanks to which he had the idea to make this piece of sports equipment the best friend of the main character.

2. After the script was ready, William Broyles Jr. began visiting studios, offering bosses to make a film. The studio "Castlerock" became interested in this script. Film bosses have already begun making plans for this film and selecting a director and main actors.

By the way, the studio bosses wanted to see Ralph Fiennes, Kevin Spacey or Kevin Costner in the role of Chuck Noland. But that was not the case, since the film companies “20th century FOX” and “Dreamworks” managed to acquire the rights to shoot a film based on this script.

3. When it came to the director, the bosses decided that the film should definitely be directed by Robert Zemeckis. He agreed, but with one condition: the role of Chuck Noland would have to be played by Tom Hanks, with whom Zemeckis had already worked together on the film Forrest Gump. No one at the top was against this, so Tom Hanks was immediately cast in the lead role.





Also, Zemeckis really wanted to see Michelle Pfeiffer in the role of Kelly (Chuck’s girlfriend), but the actress refused because she simply wasn’t interested in the role.



Then this role was offered to Sharon Stone. But she also refused this role. Moreover, her refusal was not at all due to the fact that she did not like the script. Everything turned out to be much more interesting. According to the actress, she would have agreed to this role if it had been important for the film, but the most important character after Tom Hanks was... a volleyball.

Then the agents offered the role to Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt, who immediately agreed to play this, albeit small, but quite important role.









4. Robert Zemeckis was accused of spending too much time advertising FedEx, and that the picture itself was more like one big advertisement.

Robert Zemeckis himself said that he did not receive a penny from the company, and that it is unlikely that the company would pay for such advertising, where, due to the fault of their brand, the plane crashed and people did not receive their packages.



And it really is. FedEx initially objected to the company's name appearing in the film. But later they changed their minds, and even provided their boxes, cars and warehouse in Moscow for filming. And the head of the Fedex company, Fred Smith, even starred in a short episode on the plane.



6. Producer Steve Starkey suggested filming the island scenes somewhere in Hawaii as it would be cheaper, but this proposal was rejected in favor of creativity and realism. As a result, Manuriki Island, which belongs to Fiji, was chosen as the filming location.



Before the filming of this film, no one really knew about the island, and it really is uninhabited. But after the success of the film, it was literally flooded with tourists who, at least for a short time, wanted to be in the shoes of the main character.

8. Initially, the producers wanted the main character’s “friend” to be an American football ball (ellipsoidal), but Robert Zemeckis abandoned this idea in favor of a volleyball from Wilson, after which the ball got its name.



And by the way, after the success of the film, sales of Wilson balls jumped sharply. Moreover, the company has created a separate line of balls with the “bloody” handprint of Tom Hanks. But the company itself did not pay filmmakers for advertising.

9. The moment when Chuck Noland tries to break the coconut by throwing it at the wall is purely improvised by Tom Hanks. Initially, Zemeckis did not want to insert this scene, as he considered such an idea stupid. But after thinking a little, the director decided that this scene should be in the film, since a person in despair often does stupid things.



10. Filming after the plane crash, when Hanks' character tries to escape on an inflatable boat, was filmed on the studio pavilion in a huge swimming pool. And in some scenes, Tom Hanks decided to participate personally without doubles, which allowed the operator to shoot the necessary scenes close-up.



Tom Hanks himself admitted that he enjoyed filming this scene, with the exception of one thing - the water that was present during filming.

11. In the scene where Chuck Noland cuts his leg on the sharp rocks at the bottom, the blood, of course, was not real. But while filming the film, Tom Hanks really cut his leg badly and got an infection. The actor received medical assistance, but he had to stay in the hospital for several days, which is why filming was temporarily suspended. After that, he walked in the water only in sandals. And the legs that we are shown under water belonged to the stunt double.



12. The corpse of the pilot who washed ashore was not played by a living person. A human-sized doll was made especially for the film.

13. During a break between filming, Tom Hanks wanted to try to start a fire himself using friction, just like his hero. But in the end, he spent about an hour and still didn’t get the fire.



14. The rain that we see in the film was not real. It was created using special large rain installations, which were very difficult to transport to the island. The creators would have been happy to shoot the film during real rain, but there was never any precipitation during filming.



Also, some problems arose with the delivery of lighting equipment, so most of the night scenes were shot during the day and then darkened during the editing stage.

15. In order to realistically show a man who was on an island for a long time, eating only fruit and fish, Tom Hanks had to lose 20 kilograms.



Initially, he was given 6 months to lose the required amount of weight, but then the creators nevertheless came to the conclusion that this would be a mockery of the actor, so he was given 1 year to lose weight.

As Tom Hanks himself admitted, losing weight was difficult for him, as he had to give up his favorite foods and delicacies.



But Robert Zemeckis did not sit idle during the year-long break, but shot the film “What Lies Beneath,” where the main role was played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who refused to film “Cast Away.”

16. But Hanks' transformation involved more than just weight loss. While the actor was losing weight, he deliberately grew his hair and beard. Therefore, the image that we see in the frame (of the hairy and bearded Hanks) is not makeup, but the actor’s real hair.



17. The name and surname of the main character (Chuck Noland) were not invented by chance. There is some play on words hidden here. If you leave only the first letter of the name and the entire surname, you get “C. Noland”, which is consonant with the combination “See no land”, which can be translated as “I don’t see land”.

18. The original plan was to have someone off-screen read from Wilson's point of view so that Tom Hanks could better frame his dialogue with the ball. But in the end, this idea was discarded, since the actor coped well with the role, talking to a dumb ball without prompters.



19. One of the most difficult scenes was filming Wilson's loss in the ocean. The ball did not want to float away from Tom Hanks. When it was launched, it kept coming back. Members of the crew even joked that Wilson was alive and he didn’t want to swim away from his friend.



As a result, due to all the difficulties, filming this scene lasted as many as 4 days. But all this was not in vain. We got the most emotional scene, because of which quite a few people shed tears and even cried.

20. The raft for the film was built through the efforts of members of the film crew. It took about 5 days to build this raft, but when it was launched into the water, it immediately fell apart. As a result, we had to hire professionals from Fiji, who built a really high-quality raft.



21. Naturally, after watching the film, everyone was tormented by one question: What is in that very package with wings that Chuck did not open and delivered to the recipient at the end?

According to the original idea, screenwriter William Broyles planned that at the end of the film the package would be opened, and there would be a bottle of sauce from a certain woman who sent it to her beloved, attaching a letter saying that she was very lonely and seemed to be isolated without your loved one.



But in the end, this idea was not accepted, and it was decided not to open the package at all, so that viewers could build their own theories. In the end, that’s what happened. Heated discussions began to appear on the Internet, where everyone offered their own options for the contents of the parcel.

A little later, Robert Zemeckis said that the package contained a waterproof, solar-powered cell phone. Naturally, the director was just joking. A real "level 80 troll."



Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks

But the trolling wasn't over. A little later, a Fedex commercial was released, where Tom Hanks' character delivers that same package and asks what was in it. And the girl replies: “Nothing special. A cell phone, a fishing rod and a GPS navigator.”

22. With a budget of $113.5 million (90 million was spent on production and $23.5 million on advertising), the film grossed almost $430 million worldwide.



It was definitely a success. But many told Zemeckis that the film would fail at the box office, and that the mass audience did not need such a movie. But they were all wrong.

23. The creators of the cult series Lost (LOST) said that it was the film Cast Away that inspired them to create their series. Only, unlike the hero Tom Hanks, no one in the series lost weight.

24. Ball Wilson also had backups. A total of 3 balls were used for the film. One of these balls, by the way, went under the hammer for $18,400.



25. To create the music for the film, the famous composer Alan Silvesteri was brought in, who wrote music for such cult films as “Forrest Gump”, “Back to the Future”, “Predator”, “The Avengers”, etc.

But Robert Zemeckis said that his film will have a minimum of music so that the viewer can be more immersed in the film and understand the main character. Therefore, the total duration of the music in the film is only 15 minutes, and this includes the credits.

26. Environmentalists carefully monitored the filming process. They even entered into an agreement with the filmmakers that for every tree cut down they would be obliged to plant three new ones.



27. The difficulties of filming also lay in the fact that constantly screaming surfers swam near the island, and there were also noisy yachts. Because of this, the sound turned out to be defective, so to achieve maximum silence the sound had to be recorded and overdubbed separately.

But thanks to this, the film was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Sound category. True, we were never able to pick up the figurine itself.