1. While on vacation with his family in Hawaii in the summer of 2003, the then-chairman of ABC Entertainment, Lloyd Braun, watched the network's broadcast of Cast Away and thought the concept would make for an interesting show.

2. Braun had liked the name Lost ever since an NBC reality show launched with the name in 2001.

3. The room fell "dead silent" after he pitched the idea during an ABC corporate retreat shortly thereafter.

4. But ABC's head of drama development, Thom Sherman, liked the idea and hired fledgling writer Jeffrey Lieber (Tuck Everlasting) to work on it.

5. In his first draft, Lieber changed the title of the proposed series to Nowhere. The draft did not live up to Braun's expectations and Lieber was taken off the project. Braun reached out to J.J. Abrams, who was still working on Alias. (Lieber, however, would go on to receive a "created by" credit on the completed show.)

6. Because Abrams was so busy, the network also approached young writer Damon Lindelof, who wanted nothing more than to get a job on Alias. He had been in touch with ABC drama executive Heather Kadin, hoping she'd help make it happen.

7. Among Lindelof's initial pitches to Abrams was the suggestion that the castaways discover a hatch in the middle of the jungle and spend the whole first season trying to open it.

8. Abrams originally wanted Michael Keaton for the role of Jack.

9. The character of Jack was supposed to die midway through the pilot episode.

10. Steve McPherson, the then-president of ABC, argued that killing Jack would make viewers not trust the show. When the plan changed, Keaton was out.

11. Jack's death scene instead went to Oceanic 815's co-pilot (played by Greg Grunberg, Abrams' friend since kindergarten and a former star of two of his other series, Alias and Felicity).

12. Forest Whitaker was originally cast as Sawyer, but backed out to direct First Daughter, which coincidentally starred Michael Keaton as the president of the United States.