FORREST GUMP was released 29 years ago today. One of the biggest movies of the 1990s, and one of Tom Hanksโ most famous roles, the behind the scenes story was as out there as the title characterโฆ
A THREAD
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A THREAD
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Forrest Gump started life as a 1986 novel by author Winston Groom, and a studio bidding war started before it was even published. Producers Wendy Finerman and Steve Tisch acquired the rights, with Warner Bros optioning it to produce, and Groom wrote a script.
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When Rain Man was a huge hit in 1988, Warners felt the โfeelgood movies about a savantโ niche was covered and pulled out. Finerman hired Eric Roth to rewrite and took the script to Paramount. They bought the rights from WB in exchange for the rights to Executive Decision.
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Ivan Reitman, Penny Marshall, and Terry Gilliam passed on the chance to direct. Barry Sonnenfeld was attached and agreed in principle, but then left to direct Addams Family Values.
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Eric Rothโs first drafts of the script included some animation (Jenny had angel wings and Lt. Dan a permanent stormcloud over his head). As such, Paramount went to Who Framed Roger Rabbit director, Robert Zemeckis. He agreed to direct on condition the animation was removed.
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In the novel, Forrest was 6โ6โ and 240lbs, and Groom had imagined John Goodman as playing the movie version. Zemeckisโ first choices were Bill Paxton and Harry Anderson. The studio thought Paxton lacked star power, and Anderson had commitments with TV sitcom Daveโs World.
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Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and John Travolta were all offered the part but turned it down, and Sean Penn was considered. Travolta later said it was a huge regret he didnโt take it.
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Zemeckis sent the script to Tom Hanks. He loved it and agreed to do the part immediately, on condition the film was made to be historically accurate. Reportedly, Hanks waived his fee for the film in exchange for percentage points: a decision which made him $40m!
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Hanks wanted to speak in a soft Southern accent as Forrest, but Zemeckis convinced him to commit to a heavy drawl. Hanks copied the accent of Michael Conner Humphreys, who played young Forrest and actually spoke that way.
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The female lead is Forrestโs best friend, Jenny Curran. Jodie Foster, Nicole Kidman ad Demi Moore all turned the part down before Robin Wright was cast.
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Two-time Oscar winner Sally Field was Zemeckisโ choice as Forrestโs mother. Field had to be heavily made up as sheโs only 10 years older than Hanks. In fact, they played love interests in 1980s comedy Punchline.
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For the role of Lieutenant Dan Taylor, Joe Pesci was considered before Gary Sinise was cast. Throughout filming, Sinise wore a St Christopher medal as worn by his brother-in-law, Jack Treese, when he served in Vietnam.
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David Alan Grier, Ice Cube and Dave Chappelle all turned down the chance to play Bubba. Cube said he โwonโt play an idiotโ and Chappelle later admitted regretting the decision. Zemeckis cast Mykelti Williamson.
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Williamson wore a prosthetic to portray Bubbaโs protruding lower lip and said he found it hard to get work after the film as people would cast him thinking the prosthetic was real.
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Thereโs some mystery around the Elvis cameo. Itโs known that Peter Dobson played him, but not confirmed who played the voice. Thereโs been speculation it was Kurt Russell, who played The King in a 1979 TV movie.
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There some family cameos in the film too. Zemeckisโ son Alexander is a boy on the school bus. Hanksโ daughter, Elizabeth is on there too. And Hanksโ brother, Jim, was a body double for Hanks in some of the running scenes. โNobody runs like a Hanksโ Jim said.
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The most famous line in the film is probably Forrestโs motto: โLife is like a box of chocolates.โ The line isnโt actually in the book, but comes from the novelโs first line: "Let me say this: bein' an idiot is no box of chocolates".
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The film took advantage of the advent of CGI effects. In playing an amputee, Sinise's lower legs were digitally removed by effects studio ILM. And in the table tennis scenes, the ball was always added in using CGI.
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Magician Ricky Jay designed a special wheelchair for Sinise to hide his legs on a hidden platform underneath. The contortion required meant Sinise could only be in the chair for 10 minutes at a time.
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Filming the napalm Vietnam scene, a real explosion was set off. It was shot in a field in South Carolina where the owners wanted to clear it for a golf course. Due to the complexity, it had to be done in one take, and Zemeckis reportedly missed it as he was in the toilet.
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To film the scene, stunt actors were used, then Hanks and Williamson were filmed, with Williamson supported by a cable wire. The explosion was then filmed, and the actors and jet fighters were added in digitally.
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Zemeckis hand-picked pop songs to represent the different time periods in the film but the studio said they were too expensive. He left them in as a temp track and when Paramount saw the film they loved it so much they paid to keep the songs in.
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Zemeckis brought back his Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future collaborator โ Alan Silvestri โ to write the score. If you listen, youโll hear the Forrest Gump theme is similar to the one in BTTF Part III when Marty and Doc are sleeping in the living room.
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Another famous line is "My name is Forrest Gump. People call me Forrest Gump." This was improvised by Hanks, and Zemeckis thought it was great, so kept it in.
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Paramount had cut the budget by $10m and wanted Zemeckis to cut the distance running scenes. Zemeckis shot them in secret except for the ones in Monument Valley and when the studio saw them they relented. Zemeckis and Hanks paid for the Monument Valley scene themselves.
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One shot Zemeckis did leave out involved Forrest running into Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and his supporters. The idea was that Forrest distracts a pack of dogs attacking King and his supporters by playing fetch with them. You can see it hereโฆ
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Due to the budget constraints, the film was shot in Beaufort, South Carolina. Forrestโs Alabama house was built there, as was Jennyโs. The war scenes were all shot just yards from Jennyโs house, with 20 palm trees planted to make it look like Vietnam.
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The first person Forrest speaks to in the film is loosely based on Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks. Sheโs an African American woman waiting for the bus and says her โfeet hurtโ - Reported to be what Parks said when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger.
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Zemeckis used the paintings of Norman Rockwell as inspiration for Greenbow, Alabama. The scene where Forrest sits in the hallway of his school while his mother talks to the principal is a direct re-creation of Rockwell's painting Girl with a Black Eye.
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Similarly, when Jenny throws her shoes and stones at the house where she grew up, she collapses onto the ground. The image is very similar to the famous Andrew Wyeth painting, Christinaโs World.
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Eric Roth wrote several drafts of the speech Forrest gives, but Zemeckis said โWe need something way funnier and more important.โ Roth enlisted help from Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, but Zemeckis still wasnโt impressed and changed it so Forrestโs mic gets unplugged.
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We canโt hear it, but according to Hanks, what he said was: "Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that."
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When Forrest calls to report the Watergate burglary, the security guard who answers the phone says "Security, Frank Wills." He was the guard on duty during that night, and the person who discovered the break-in.
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Another example of Zemeckisโ exact attention detail is that whenever the film changes time periods, Forrest is always first shown wearing a blue check shirtโฆ
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Also, due to Forrest being involved in most major events of the 20th century, he has a lot of photos taken of him. In every picture, he has his eyes closed. Hanks said Forrest is trying so hard to stand up straight and look normal that he forgets to open his eyes.
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The running scene was inspired by a real event. In 1982, 16 year old Louis Michael Figueroa ran from New Jersey to San Francisco for the American Cancer Society. He said โI just put one foot in front of the other" inspiring Forrestโs line โI just felt like running.โ
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Robin Wright had a cold shooting the nightclub scene but still performed her own singing during a non-stop 24 hour shooting session, during which she was mostly nude, except for her guitar covering her.
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There was a deleted scene where young Jenny killed her father by releasing the tractor handbrake so it runs him over. This was removed as Zemeckis was concerned audiences might not forgive Jenny, no matter how evil her father was.
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Forrest Gump's Medal of Honor ceremony uses footage of a ceremony for Sammy L. Davis, awarded the Medal of Honor by Lyndon B. Johnson for his actions in Vietnam in 1967. Tom Hanks' head was superimposed on Davis' body.
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Haley Joel Osment plays Forrestโs son, Forrest. He was cast in the film after casting director Ellen Lewis saw him in a pizza commercial. 5 years later he was the most prominent child actor in Hollywood. Blink and youโll miss himโฆ
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The park bench Forrest sits on for much of the movie was Savannah, Georgia, Chippewa Square. The bench has since has been placed into the Savannah History Museum, Savannah, Georgia.
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On the back of the film, Gary Sinise formed The Gary Sinise Foundation for injured war veterans, which raises up to $30 million per year. It has 12 private jets which they use to fly veterans, and many sick children, to locations and holidays around the world.
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The film won 6 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor for Hanks, who was the first person to win back-to-back acting Oscars since Spencer Tracy. On a $55m budget it grossed $678.2m making it a massive smash hit.
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