Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks were no strangers to partnering up and bathing in the adulation of awards season glory, with Forrest Gump earning a mammoth $683 million at the box office as it embedded itself into popular culture, before it went on to win six Academy Awards from thirteen nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.
Five years later, the dynamic duo reunited for Cast Away, and based on the premise alone it looked like another surefire bet for a hefty trophy haul. Hanks’ FedEx exec Chuck Noland survives a plane crash and finds himself stranded alone on a desert island, where he ends up spending years in isolation with only his best friend and volleyball Wilson for company.
Admittedly, that’s distilling it down massively, but a lot of fans regard the movie as one of Hanks’ very best. Much like Gump, Cast Away was a commercial success after hauling in $429 million, and Wilson went on to enter the cultural lexicon, but the only Oscar nods came for the leading man’s performance and the sound design, which came as a huge surprise.
Hanks even admitted that his diagnosis as a diabetic had a lot to do with the severe weight loss he endured for the role, once again proving the star’s dedication to his craft. Cast Away is an excellent film that’s equal parts moving, exciting, emotional and funny, with Netflix subscribers evidently revisiting the 1999 effort in their droves as it continues to ascend up the Top 20 most-watched rankings, as per FlixPatrol.
Published: Oct 5, 2021 10:57 am