Forrest Gump screenwriter says doing a sequel “felt meaningless” after 9/11

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

FORREST GUMP is one of those movies you need not bother asking anyone if they’ve seen because, simply put, everyone has seen that movie one way or another. Even when it was released 25 years ago there was no avoiding it, and it went on the win numerous Oscars and earn over $300 million domestically, becoming one of the biggest movies ever. Had it come out today a whole cinematic universe would’ve come out of it, but a sequel never happened for the Tom Hanks vehicle, and though a script was completed writer Eric Roth revealed how a national tragedy pumped the brakes.

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Roth explained during an interview with Yahoo Entertainment that he turned in a script for the movie for the sequel on September 10, 2001, the day before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Obviously, that affected everything, and he went on to say how he, Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis lost all interest in doing it after that. 

“Tom [Hanks] and Bob and I got together on 9/11 to sort of commiserate about how life was in America and how tragic it was. We looked at each other and said, ‘This movie has no meaning anymore.'”

Perhaps halting the movie altogether was a good thing, because Roth then went on to reveal the ludicrous ideas they had in store for Gump and the adventures they were going to set him out on. He begins this outpouring of crazy details by saying the movie would’ve found Gump’s son, Forrest Jr., (Haley Joel Osment) living with AIDS.

“And people wouldn’t go to class with him in Florida,” he said. “We had a funny sequence where they were [desegregation] busing in Florida at the same time, so people were angry about either the busing, or [their] kids having to go to school with the kid who had AIDS. So there was a big conflict.”

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If that doesn’t sound totally out of left field, then just know this was all before setting Forrest Sr. out into some wild hijinks, including being in the backseat of OJ Simpson’s infamous white bronco just, I don’t know, hanging out.

“I had him in the back of OJ [Simpson]’s Bronco, and that he would look up occasionally and they didn’t see him in the rear-view mirror,” Roth said. “I had him as a ballroom dancer, and eventually as a charity thing he danced with Princess Diana.”

Roth continues detailing some of the other things Gump would do, like become a famed ballroom dancer who danced with Princess Diana, become a bingo caller and meet a Native American love interest who would later die in the Oklahoma City bombing. After detailing that last bit, Roth reiterated that, after 9/11, “everything felt meaningless.”

So, yeah, the guy who met JFK and started a shrimping business was going to be hanging out with both OJ Simpson and Princess Diana because, of course, you have to go bigger and bolder for the sequels. No matter, Roth's career was fine despite not doing a GUMP sequel, getting nominated for Oscars for writing movies like MUNICH, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON and this year for A STAR IS BORN. Yeah, maybe his resume does look better without GUMP 2 on it. 

Here's the full interview, and yes, this all comes up in the span of two minutes.