The Cast Away Island Location: Where was Cast Away filmed?
Posted by Ra Moon
Would you survive a Robinson Crusoe-Esque adventure, like the one pictured in this 2000 classic? The island location is actually a lovely mini-paradise.
Cast Away was filmed in the South Pacific Ocean island of Monuriki in the Republic of Fiji.
Cast Away was filmed in the South Pacific Ocean island of Monuriki in the Republic of Fiji.
With this film, we learned that we shouldn’t postpone the appointment with our dentist before taking a transoceanic flight.
Directed and produced by Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Contact), Tom Hanks had the original idea for the movie after reading about FedEx planes crossing the ocean several times a day.
We have reunited all the Cast Away filming locations along with the most interesting facts about the film.
Cast Away Locations
The film starts and ends at a crossroads, symbolizing the relevant decisions that Chuck takes during the movie.
According to IMDb, Cast Away was filmed at the Market Roads 48 and 1268 intersection, located between Mobeetie and the town of Canadian, Texas.
(You can open all the locations on Google Maps by clicking on the links below in the captions ↴)
Image courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures - Map
Image courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures - Map
If you travel to this barren landscape, you will see how it changed after 20 years: Today, there is a set of wind turbines everywhere you look. The location is very well-marked on Google Maps.
A Waymarking website user found the exact location of the Dick and Bettina's Ranch, situated in somewhere called Neece at County Road 5 near Canadian.
The Arrington Ranch House Lodge is just about 10 min (5.7 miles) in a perfectly straight line away from the intersection, so it's easy to visit them together.
Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox - Map
The scenes in Russia in 1995, when Chuck Noland is a demanding systems analyst obsessed with time, were filmed in the early FedEx facilities in Moscow.
Back in the 1990s, after the fall of communism, American movies loved to film in Russia; the movie was filmed on location in the legendary Red Square, right in the heart of the former Soviet enemy.
However, the house near St. Basil's Cathedral (and the Kremlin) where Dick the Texan receives the package was filmed in the Brownstone Street set in the backlot of Universal Studios Hollywood (California).
Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox - Map
The Cast Away Island is Monuriki in Fiji
After a severe storm causes a breakdown in the plane that transports Chuck from Memphis to Malaysia, he wakes up somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
The tiny island where most of the film takes place is actually a real paradise-like islet called Monuriki. As in the movie, Monuriki is a rocky uninhabited island with plenty of coconuts, crabs, and exotic green-crested iguanas.
Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox - Map
As you can see in the image, on the other side of the hill there are a few gorgeous neighboring islands, part of the Mamanuca archipelago.
Monuriki (also spelled Modriki) is off the coast of Viti Levu, the mothership and largest island of the Fiji Islands.
Image courtesy of Martha de Jong-Lantink
Lonely Planet reports that any resort in the area offers tours to the "Tom Hanks Island" for around $100 to $140 depending on what is included and where you start out.
Surrounded by a coral reef and pristine waters, the spot is perfect for snorkeling or for lying on the small white sand beaches.
Monuriki has a total length of 1.15 kilometers (0.71 mi) and a width of 600 meters (660 yards).
But please don't try to climb the island, the scenes with Hanks scaling the rocky peak were filmed at the studio in Los Angeles, with CGI added in post-production.
Also, it's important not to confuse the movie location with the Castaway Island Fiji Resort on Qalito Island.
This hit blockbuster movie was filmed in chronological order between 1998 and 2000. Filming halted for a year, so Tom Hanks could lose fifty pounds and grow out his hair.
During this hiatus (an extreme rarity today), director Robert Zemeckis used the same crew to film the supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer.
This way, Zemeckis kept his crew together. The final return scenes were recorded four months after the filming of the section of the movie aboard the raft.
Image courtesy of Phil Gibbs
Did you know that the 2000s TV series Lost was inspired by Cast Away? According to Chicago magazine Lloyd Braun, the chairman of ABC, hired writer Jeffrey Lieber to develop the pilot for Cast Away-the Series, centered around several characters stranded on a Pacific island.
Also Matt Damon's 2015 film The Martian is a sort of Cast Away in space.
Film crews built a small village of huts on the island to store the necessary equipment. Tom Hanks almost passed away when he received a cut and it got infected.
He stayed in a hospital for three days and the production had to shut down for three weeks because doctors didn't recommend him to get in water.
At the beginning of the movie, when the FedEx truck comes to pick up the package, the ranch had "Dick and Bettina" on the sign.
Dick was the cowboy who had a Russian mistress in Moscow. Their marriage probably went south as at the end of the film "Dick" was removed.
Although at times Cast Away seems like a long TV FedEx commercial, the company headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, didn't purchase product placement in the film. It was the producers' idea "to focus on FedEx’s efficiency".
Tom Hanks' character kept an unopened FedEx box during all these four years on the island. Chuck's package for Bettina was finally ready for delivery!
The main cast is completed by Helen Hunt, Nick Searcy, and the famous 'Wilson' the volleyball.
The critical response to the film was generally positive from critics who praised Hanks' performance, winning the 2001 Golden Globe Award for best actor in a dramatic motion picture.
Can you help to improve this article about the filming locations of Cast Away? To complete and correct this report, any feedback, info, or images that you may have are more than welcome, thank you!
NOTICE: If you’re using this information on your website, please credit and link to this page as a source.
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NOTICE: If you’re using this information on your website, please credit and link to this page as a source.
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3 comments:
1- Anonymous - August 25, 2021 at 7:54 PM
Great movie and great article! It was awesome rewatching it tonight and then reading about the trivia here.
2- Anonymous - Dec 31, 2021, 7:42 AM
I am watching the movie right at this moment. He is performing his own dentistry.
3- Anonymous - Dec 30, 2022, 7:20 PM
Is the picture of the moon over the Pacific real or digitally enhanced?
1- Anonymous - August 25, 2021 at 7:54 PM
Great movie and great article! It was awesome rewatching it tonight and then reading about the trivia here.
2- Anonymous - Dec 31, 2021, 7:42 AM
I am watching the movie right at this moment. He is performing his own dentistry.
3- Anonymous - Dec 30, 2022, 7:20 PM
Is the picture of the moon over the Pacific real or digitally enhanced?
Ra Moon
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