Tom Hanks reveals failed Forrest Gump sequel meeting

Tom Hanks has revealed he sat down to talk about a sequel to the hugely-successful movie, but it took just 40 minutes for it to be shelved.

Tom Hanks has revealed a failed meeting to discuss a sequel to Forrest Gump.

The 66-year-old US actor, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor thanks to his enthralling performance in the legendary 1994 film, said there was a desire to produce a follow-up to the box office smash hit, which earned $678 million worldwide and netted five Oscars, including Best Picture.

“I will say that, with a long time in between, we did take a stab at talking about another Forrest Gump that lasted all of 40 minutes,” Hanks said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

“And then we never … We said, ‘Guys, come on.’”

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Tom Hanks won an Oscar for his portrayal in Forrest Gump.

The original movie was based on a novel by US writer Winston Groom, who penned a second Gump book in 1995, meaning there was source material for a sequel.

US screenwriter Eric Roth, who had originally adapted Groom’s novel for the screen, was tasked with writing the script for Forrest Gump 2. Unfortunately, he turned in his completed draft on September 10, 2001.

“Literally, I turned it in the day before 9/11,” Roth told Yahoo Entertainment in 2019.

“And Tom (Hanks) and I and [director] Bob (Zemeckis) got together on 9/11 to sort of commiserate about how life was in America and how tragic it was. And we looked at each other and said, ‘This movie has no meaning anymore, in that sense’.”

Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis and Hanks considered teaming up on a Forrest Gump sequel. Picture: Frederic J. Brown/AFP

So what exactly happens in this never-to-be-seen sequel? While Forrest Gump traced the story of the titular character’s life from his childhood in the 1950s, through his time in the Vietnam War and into the 70s, the sequel — titled Gump and Co. — was slated to pick up in the 1980s.

And things take a sad turn for Gump’s own son, played in the original film by a young Haley Joel Osment.

“It was gonna start with his little boy having AIDS,” Roth told Yahoo, explaining that the film would’ve examined the brutal HIV/AIDS stigma of the 1980s, with the young boy facing discrimination at school because of his disease.

The sequel continue with the theme of Gump popping up in some of history’s most seminal moments — this time, in the back of O.J. Simpson’s Bronco during the sports star’s 1994 televised police car chase after the murder of his ex-wife.

“He would look up occasionally, but they didn’t see him in the rearview mirror, and then he’d pop down,” said Roth.

Gump would also become a ballroom dancer, dancing with Princess Diana before her 1997 death.

Forrest was going to dance with Princess Diana. Picture: Liu Heung Shing/AP

But in a post-September 11 world, the Forrest Gump sequel wasn’t meant to be.

Another real-life event woven into the script: The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, a terrorist attack that killed 168 people.

Gump befriends a Native American woman, who teaches nursery school at a government building in Oklahoma City (the site of the real-life bombing). In the proposed film, Gump is sitting on a bench outside the building waiting for her to join him for lunch, when the building behind him explodes.

Given the tragic events that occurred just one day after Roth turned in his script in, the sequel was put on ice – permanently. “Everything felt meaningless,” he recalled of life immediately after 9/11.

That aside, Hanks is also renowned for only occasionally doing sequels.

The only sequels Hanks has been involved in was the highly-successful Toy Story franchise, in which he voiced the animated character Woody for four films, and Angels & Demons and Inferno, the second and third follow-ups to 2006’s The Da Vinci Code.

Multi-Oscar winner Hanks ensures he is never contractually pressured into doing sequels.

“A smart thing I did is I’ve never signed a contract that had a contractual obligation to a sequel,” Hanks said.

“I’ve always said, ‘Guys, if there’s a reason to do it, let’s do it. But you guys can’t force me.’

“There is that natural inclination that is one of pure commerce that says, ‘Hey, you just had a hit, so do it again and you’ll have a hit.’”

Meanwhile, Hanks has reunited with Zemeckis for the fourth time for Disney’s live-action Pinocchio, which hits streaming on Disney+ today.