Leonardo DiCaprio was paid $20 million for the film, the result of the immense success of Titanic (1997). DiCaprio had originally planned to play the lead character in American Psycho (2000), but when his salary demand proved too much, that deal broke down and he agreed to make The Beach.
The actual beach is not totally surrounded and enclosed by mountains, hiding it from the sea. In fact, there is a large gap between two gigantic boulders, and the films editors superimposed a fake mountain in post-production.
Ewan McGregor was Danny Boyle's first choice to play the part of Richard. The studio wanted Leonardo DiCaprio and cast him before Boyle could intervene. While McGregor blamed the studio, he did not speak with Boyle for many years, and admitted in an interview that he felt betrayed at the time. Happily, in 2015, McGregor and Boyle made amends and are now on good terms. McGregor said in 2017, "It was a mis-handling and a mis-understanding over the film and it's a big regret of mine that it went on for so very long... and it didn't matter about The Beach, it was never about that. It was about our friendship. I felt like Danny's actor and it made me a bit rudderless." Boyle added, "I handled it very very badly and I have apologized to Ewan for it. I felt a great shame about it and how it was handled."
The island was initially chosen by location scouts for Fox Studios not because of its astounding natural beauty, but because of its potential for a landscaping redevelopment. The script called for a clearing on the beach large enough to play football, so they bulldozed a large swath of the native trees and vegetation. They also planted a hundred non-native palm trees just to get the right look, essentially introducing an exotic species to the island that could take over and effectively change the habitat forever. While the whole thing was an eyesore for the locals, the real damage didn't come until the filmmakers left the island. The usual seasonal storms hit the beach, but this time the sand dunes didn't have the protection of their natural vegetation. They collapsed immediately and washed out to sea, damaging the fragile coral reef on their way out. Environmentalists were outraged and accused the filmmakers of bribing the Thai government to get around legal requirements; for instance, the National Park Act, which was specifically designed to prevent this exact sort of thing. Allegedly Fox donated the equivalent of $100,000 to the Royal Forestry Development in Thailand; the normal fee for filming on the island is less than one percent of that. Afterwards, they were allowed the freedom to remodel the island as much as they pleased after the money changed hands. Environmentalists responded by taking legal action against Fox Studios, its local coordinator Santa International, and the Thai government officials. Seven years later, the court penalized the film company for unnecessary ecological destruction and ordered them to repair all environmental damage to Maya Beach, which is much more than just planting a few trees. They are also expected to rebuild the marine life population that was wiped out. In a fitting twist, the message of the movie is that trying to preserve an untouched paradise is futile.