I haven't seen this movie in YEARS but I remember enjoying it as a kid.

The sequences on the island are very good, but the rest of the film is underdeveloped. You care about him, but you really don't give a shit that he loses his wife or anything else. Awesome survival scenes. The banter between him and Wilson is easy to see why it has become so iconic.

B

I caught this on TV the other day. Obviously it's a great film, but it made me ponder movies nowadays against movies back then, and it was only 22 years ago. I suppose that's both a long time ago and not so long ago, particularly for a seismic shift in the the way movies are received. You just would not get a story-driven film starring a single movie star with minimal dialogue reaching over $230 million these days.

I also couldn't think who made it while I was watching. That's embarrassing to admit, but I had Ron Howard in mind for some reason, and I do not believe it's even too much of a stretch. It's totally the sort of film he could've made. But, alas, it was Robert Zemeckis. Both great directors.

I don't think I'd seen it since 2000/01, so it was lovely to revisit it, sparking nostalgia for turn-of-the-millennium cinema.

It's crazy that this now adjusts to almost $400M. Saving Private Ryan, You've Got Mail, Toy Story 2, Green Mile and Castaway in 2.5 years span. Was one of Hanks most memorable performances for sure.

I always liked that zemekis made what lies beneath with the same crew waiting for Hanks to lose the weight. You don’t get that anymore. Or making a 300 million earner while twiddling your thumbs. And to be honest the second half of the film is not as good, which always hurt the film’s classic level to me. It’s really films like this, I am Legend, the fugitive. You miss it. Probably The Martian and Gravity follow the same person alone type of scenario. But still it’s Hanks and a volleyball

Tom Hanks at the peak of his powers was an epic box office draw. This was a high concept film well executed.

No way this does $400 million today, but I could see $200m+ for it with a true star in the lead.

It is disappointing Zemeckis didn't have more memorable movies in last 20 years considering he was only 48 when Cast Away came out. When you read about the filming of Cast Away like in post I found (https://www.cinema.com/articles/166/cas ... otes.phtml) it's obvious how much they thought about some decisions, and likely similar in his previous movies. But I think he became something of silent actor in sound era, same as Rob Reiner.

I really like Flight. The mocap movies are mostly meh.

Cast Away would be a miniseries in 2023

Eh. yeah probably

I don’t think it would work as a miniseries, unless it’s hanks. You already still have survivor which was no doubt inspired by this. A series would add way too much meladrama, like naked beach or lost or the other 3-4 series that tried it. Honestly in this day and age no one is getting deserted on an island for 4 years

That’s why that superbowl commercial was one of the best ever!

He went on his CGI kick in the 00s to mix results (though to moderate success). I liked Beowulf so can't complain.

His later output was weaker - though Flight was a hit and Allied was a solid film.

Cast Away holds up well IMO. Watched it recently and it still works as well as it did over two decades ago.

Hanks was on an insane run of success between 1992 to 2002 (it began to unravel a bit in 2004)

I still think Castaway could be a hit today. The story of human survival resonates and there's a reason we're always blown away when we hear those type of stories in the news.

The bigger issue might be people's attention span. Though Wilson would probably have a Tiktok account with 10M followers if it first came out during this age.

Also why we continually have to read Lord of the Flies in school.

Cast Away could maybe do like 150-175m today, and everyone would drop their jaw at how an original film made THAT much. Just shows how audience interest overall has fallen for original films.

It's not just waiting for streaming either, since original films that bomb in theaters, with the notable exception of Encanto recently, also tend to do poorly on streaming.