It's a dark moment in a actor's life when he realizes he's been upstaged by a volleyball.

CAST AWAY

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

INT. MEMPHIS AIRPORT

TOM HANKS is saying goodbye to HELEN HUNT.

TOM HANKS

I, an employee of FEDEX now must go off in this FEDEX plane to deliver FEDEX packages to a FEDEX office. I love you, Helen.

HELEN HUNT

Since I can play nobody other than my character from Mad About You, I will be slightly distant yet lovable and pretty. I love you, Tom Hanks. Please don't get stranded on an island while delivering your FEDEX packages. I hope to settle down and have a real life with you sometime.

TOM HANKS

Me too. Unfortunately, I, like all FEDEX employees, am very devoted to making sure FEDEX packages get delivered correctly and promptly to the appropriate FEDEX locations. FEDEX is just that good. FedEx. Don't worry, there's FedEx for that. Ok, see you soon. Bye.

He gets on the plane which proceeds to go through one of the FUCKING SCARIEST CRASH SCENES IN A LONG TIME.

DIRECTOR ROBERT ZEMECKIS

Okay folks, it's all down hill from here. Go home. You're going to sit through thirty minutes of near silence until Tom develops a crush on a volleyball.

EXT. SURVIVOR ISLAND

TOM walks around on the beach.

TOM HANKS

(for the next 10 minutes)

Hello? Anyone? Hello? Anyone? Hello? Anyone? Hello? Anyone? Hello? Anyone? Hello? Hey, did I win my Oscar yet?

DIRECTOR ROBERT ZEMECKIS

Not yet. Wait until you lose some weight.

TOM HANKS

Couldn't you just shoot the scenes as I am now and then shoot the ones before I go to the island after dressing me up to look fatter?

DIRECTOR ROBERT ZEMECKIS

Quiet fat-ass, when I want your opinion, I'll bribe you with a donut for it.

TOM begins to fend for himself.

TOM HANKS

In stark contrast to my busy, yuppie lifestyle of before, I am now brought back to a primitive state. I truly must cast away the shackles of my pampered lifestyle and get in touch with the hunter-gatherer within.

(pause)

Oh look, some packages from the awesome and all-powerful FEDEX have washed ashore. Looks like I'll have some benefits of the modern world after all. The point of the movie seems a bit more vague and needless now. Oh, these boxes contains many useful tools for catching fish and eating. And it gives me someone to talk to.

VOLLEYBALL

BUY WILSON BRAND SPORTS EQUIPMENT!!!!

TOM HANKS

Maybe I should try to make fire, eh VollyballHead?

AUDIENCE

He's....talking....to...a..volleyball.

TOM HANKS

That I am. And it's a good thing too, my other Oscars were starting to get lonely. Anyway, time to repeatedly hurt myself making fire.

AUDIENCE

Couldn't you just use the glass part of that flashlight you wasted combined with the sun?

TOM HANKS

QUIET! That's for killing ants, not making fire. Idiots.

DIRECTOR ROBERT ZEMECKIS

I just wanted to pop in and remind the academy that nobody has ever made a movie like this before.

AUDIENCE

Yeah, there's a fucking reason. I'm going to sleep, wake me when he gets off the island.

Years pass. TOM loses the weight and grows a BATTLEFIELD EARTH-STYLE haircut. He then gets a PORTABLE TOILET DOOR and figures out how to make a sailboat from it. Really.

TOM HANKS escapes the island.

EXT. MEMPHIS

TOM HANKS

Well, I am back in Memphis, thanks to the help of my friends at FEDEX. I have apparently lost none of my social abilities, my face is virtually unscarred and acne-free. I'm pretty much fitting back in with no problems at all, other than sleeping on the floor. Hey, I seem to have even got a little bit fatter.

HELEN HUNT

I'm married now. I could be cliche and leave my husband for my first love, or I could leave the audience unhappy and stay with him. Either way, we make the audience unhappy.. let's go with the stay-with-husband route. That way, the audience will be unhappy but they'll have the inexplicable feeling that this movie is dramatic and good.

TOM HANKS

That's cool. See, I've realized something.

(shits pages of cheesy monologue out his mouth)

Tomorrow the sun will rise. And who knows what the tide will bring?

TOM'S DOCTOR

Bad news Tom, the tide brought scurvy and gangrene. You have a few days to live.

TOM HANKS

Then I shall join my volleyball friend. Bye everyone! And remember at Oscar time: I LOST A LOT OF WEIGHT FOR THIS ROLE!!

END

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