Barry Sonnenfeld Was Originally Supposed To Director FORREST GUMP But Dropped It To Direct ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES

Before Robert Zemeckis was attached to direct the classic 1994 film, Forrest Gump, director Barry Sonnenfeld was originally attached to helm it! Sonnenfeld is the director of films like Men in Black and The Addams Family, and he ended up dropping out of the project so that he could direct Addams Family Values.

The two films couldn’t be more different from each other, and Forrest Gump would have given Sonnenfeld something different to play with. But, he ultimately decided to stick with the Addams Family franchise. In an interview last year, Sonnenfeld explained how he ended up being attached to Forrest Gump and why he ultimately didn’t stick with it.

When talking about how Forrest Gump initially came to him, he explained to Variety:

"[Producer] Gary Lucchesi had sent me this book called Forrest Gump and he said read it and tell me we need to do it because 'I have eight scripts and they're all terrible.' I said, 'Let's change the main character from a big fat guy that's a really big running back to a thin guy that runs all the time and I'll send it to Hanks because I had shot ‘Big’ with him.' I said, 'You'll probably not want to do it because it's similar to ‘Big’ in that it's another man-child kind of thing.' Hanks loved it. He signed on, I was signed on to direct it."

Sonnenfeld was shooting the Michael J. Fox movie For Love or Money when he learned that Paramount Pictures was going to move forward with a sequel to Addams Family. He was already signed on to Forrest Gump, but he was torn on what he should do. So, ha asked Michael J. Fox for some advice. He explained:

"[A] year and a half [after the first film], Paramount decides to make Addams Family Values, so I had a choice between staying with Forrest Gump or going back to the very first thing I'd ever directed. I was working ... with Michael J. Fox, and I said, 'what should I do?' Michael said, 'you set the table with Addams Family, now you need to go have dinner.' I loved directing 'Addams Family Values.' Christina Ricci and Christine Baranski and Peter MacNicol and Joan Cusack are particularly funny in that film.”

So, Sonnenfeld ultimately chose to direct Addams Family Values, which turned out to be a great sequel! When asked if he regretted turning down Forrest Gump, he said:

“It took a long time to make my peace with that. For a long time I couldn’t see it, I just couldn’t see it. Then I was at a Christmas party at Danny DeVito’s house and [Midnight Run director] Marty Brest was there and Marty kept getting fired off shows before they were successful or quitting right before they were going into production. I figured Marty would know about this thing that happened. I went to him and he looked at the time like a rabbi and in a rabbinical way he said, ‘have you seen the movie?’ I said, ‘no I can’t.’ He said, ‘see the movie. Only then can the healing begin.’ So I rented it. It was not the movie I would have made. Maybe mine would have been worse. Maybe it would have been better. It definitely would have been shorter. But I then felt clear of it. I was okay after that. So I owe Marty a debt of thanks.”

Would you have liked to see to Barry Sonnenfeld direct Forrest Gump? Do you think he would have made a better or worse version of the movie?

Via: /film