Hanks, who came up with the original idea for CAST AWAY, began developing the film with screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. about six years ago, when the two men were working together on Apollo 13 (1995). "Tom was interested in doing a movie about a modern man who gets stranded on an island, Broyles remembers. "He really thought there was something to that idea."

As Hanks and Broyles began to toss around ideas for the film, key themes and story and character points began to fall into place. They agreed that Hanks' character should be a FedEx employee. "As a FedEx worker, the character would be dedicated to connecting people all over the world, just as his life would be run by time and his connections," Broyles explains. "And then we wondered, what would happen to him if you took this man, who's so connected, and disconnect him from everything."

This led to other questions: What happens to him on the island? How does he survive?

To find the answers, Broyles decided to get some first-hand experience. Two experts in primitive technology took Broyles to an island near the Sea of Cortez, where the writer, like his fictional creation, was cast away from the world he knew. "The first thing that came to mind was 'Oh, my god, I've got to survive,'" Broyles recalls. "I had to figure out where to get water, how to make a knife out of stone, what to eat. Some of these experiences became a kind of rudimentary basis for what happens to Chuck."

Broyles and Hanks also discussed themes from classic stories of unparalleled adventure. "Cast Away is really about finding your way home whether that means physically or emotionally - casting away all of the layers that complicate who we are in this world and rediscovering the things in life that really matter," Broyles comments.

A decorated Marine veteran, screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. received an Academy Award nomination and Writer's Guild Award nomination for Apollo 13, which he co-wrote with longtime friend and colleague Al Reinert. Their screenplay won the PEN Center Literary Award for best screenplay.

Broyles wrote Tim Burton's re-invention of Planet of the Apes. Last year, he co-wrote Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. He also wrote the screenplay of Unfaithful (2001).

Broyles was founding editor of the award-winning Texas Monthly magazine, editor-in-chief for California magazine and editor-in-chief of Newsweek. He has written for numerous magazines, authored the book Brothers in Arms, and was the co-creator of the television series China Beach, which won 12 Emmys. He currently is working on several books and screenplays.