Forrest Gump may have been one of the most lovable, and serendipitous, characters of the 90s – which is where he stayed.
Why did we never get a sequel to the masterpiece to the namesake film, eh? It grossed $678 million (£515 million) at the box office and won all the Oscars.
The answer to our question has finally been answered and we need to thank our lucky stars we never got a sequel by the sounds of it.
Because, by all accounts, it seems horrible.
Earlier this week the screenwriter of the movie, Eric Roth, revealed we very nearly had a sequel to the 1994 tear-jerking Oscar-winning film after he filed the completed draft of the script to director Robert Zemeckis on 10 September, 2001.
Of course the events of the following day on the 11th meant his movie never saw the light of day, as he claimed producers, and Forrest AKA Tom Hanks, felt the sequel was no longer important or relevant to the audience.
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We didn’t even know it was a thing until Roth explained to Yahoo Entertainment the movie would have followed Forrest Junior’s struggles with living with Aids.
Wait, what? You gave little Haley Joel Osment Aids in the sequel?
As well as that storyline we probably could have lived without (yes it was heavily implied his mother Jenny, played by Robin Wright, died from the disease, but that doesn’t mean you had to go and rip away Forrest’s son, too), it seemed the Alabaman got up to the same sort of historical hi-jinks as the first.
‘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 continued. ‘I had him as a ballroom dancer, and eventually as a charity thing he danced with Princess Diana.’
Of course he did.
And that’s all well and good, but there was mention of the ‘funny’ sequence of little Forrest that seems to have rubbed fans of the movie the wrong way.
‘It was gonna start with his little boy having Aids,’ he said. ‘And people wouldn’t go to class with him in Florida.
‘We had a funny sequence where they were [desegregation] bussing in Florida at the same time, so people were angry about either the bussing, or [their] kids having to go to school with the kid who had AIDS. So there was a big conflict.’
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Err…
The real clincher behind the film not being made came down to a storyline that had Forrest striking up a friendship with a Native American woman who was killed in the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995.
After that, Roth said: ‘So when 9/11 occurred … everything felt meaningless.’
To be quite honest, fans on social media seemed pretty pleased that sequel never saw the light of day – quietly content in the final Forrest we were graced with 25 years ago.
‘BRO this is the best thing that never happened, FORREST GUMP 2,’ one said on Twitter, as another chimed in: ‘I think we can all collectively agree that Forrest Gump did not need a sequel.’
One moviegoer really summed things up as they said: ‘I’m so glad that Forrest Gump sequel never gained traction. Sounded super super corny.’
It wasn’t all bad, though – the sequel does have a small army of fans.
‘Tbf, describing the original Forrest Gump would make the movie sound pretty stupid too,’ one wrote…and fair dos to them. ‘I am all for this bananas sequel.’
More: Tom Hanks
Sequels are like a box of chocolates…you never know which one you’re gonna get.
Yes, that joke was as rubbish as the Gump sequel sounds…
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