Taglines: At the edge of the world, his journey begins.
An exploration of human survival and the ability of fate to alter even the tidiest of lives with one major event, Cast Away tells the story of Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a Federal Express engineer who devotes most of his life to his troubleshooting job. His girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt) is often neglected by his dedication to work, and his compulsive personality suggests a conflicted man. But on Christmas Eve, Chuck proposes marriage to Kelly right before embarking on a large assignment.
On the assignment, a plane crash strands Chuck on a remote island, and his fast-paced life is slowed to a crawl, as he is miles removed from any human contact. Finding solace only in a volleyball that he befriends, Chuck must now learn to endure the emotional and physical stress of his new life, unsure of when he may return to the civilization he knew before. Cast Away reunites star Hanks with director Robert Zemeckis, their first film together since 1994’s Oscar-winning Forrest Gump.
Cast Away is a 2000 American epic survival drama film directed and co-produced by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, Nick Searcy, Christopher Noth, Geoffrey Blake, David Allen Brooks, Viveka Davis, Jennifer Choe, Lari White, Yelena Popovic and Valentina Ananina. The film depicts a FedEx employee stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes in the South Pacific and his attempts to survive on the island using remnants of his plane’s cargo.
Cast Away opened in 2,774 theaters in North America and grossed $28,883,406 with an average of $10,412 per theater on its opening weekend. For the four-day Christmas long holiday weekend, it took in a total of $39,852,075. The film kept performing well and ended up earning $233,632,142 domestically and $196,000,000 internationally for a total of $429,632,142, well above its production budget of $90 million.
The film’s minimal score was composed by Alan Silvestri for which he won a Grammy Award in 2002. The film’s soundtrack is most notable for its lack of score and creature sound effects (such as bird song or insect sounds) while Chuck is on the island, which is intended to reinforce the feeling of isolation. Cast Away contains no original musical score until Chuck escapes the island.
However, there is a Russian choral piece heard near the start of the film that was not composed or even recorded by Silvestri, so it does not appear on the film’s soundtrack list. It is a traditional Russian song written by Lev Knipper called “Oh, My Field” (“Polyushko, Polye”) and it is available on various collections of Red Army hymns.
Cast Away (2000)
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Nick Searcy, Christopher Noth, Geoffrey Blake, David Allen Brooks, Viveka Davis, Jennifer Choe, Lari White, Yelena Popovic, Valentina Ananina
Screenplay by: William Broyles Jr.
Production Design by: Rick Carter
Cinematography by: Don Burgess
Film Editing by: Arthur Schmidt
Costume Design by: Joanna Johnston
Set Decoration by: Rosemary Brandenburg, Karen O’Hara
Music by: Alan Silvestri
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox (North America), DreamWorks Pictures (International)
Release Date: December 22, 2000
Visits: 145
