Wilson Was Created From the Writer's Loneliness
Screenwriter William Broyles Jr. was struggling to find inspiration for Chuck's survival scenes. He traveled to a remote island in Mexico's Sea of Cortes to get a first-hand look at what this character would be struggling with. He knew he needed some form of companionship quickly after he stepped foot on the island. Broyle described his experiment: "I had to figure out how to open a coconut because I was so thirsty, I had to figure out how to make a knife out of a rock, I had to learn how to spear stingrays... It was just a few days, but I got really lonely. And then one morning this Wilson volleyball washed up on the beach and I looked at it, and put some seashells on it, and I started talking to it... "