FORREST GUMP Screenwriter Eric Roth Explains Ideas That Were Pitched for Sequel... And They Were Bananas
Here’s a strange video for you today in which Kevin Polowy from Yahoo Entertainment interviewed Eric Roth, the screenwriter of the iconic movie Forrest Gump, as well as some other incredible films that include Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
In the clip, Roth explains that he turned in his script proposal for a Forrest Gump sequel on September 10, 2001, just one day before the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York City.
His ideas for the sequel included Forrest’s son, of the same name, facing trials in the small Alabama town as a child living HIV positive in a time where people were very afraid of the disease and what it meant. The movie would have seen Forrest Gump placed all throughout significant historical situations, just like the first movie, but jumping into the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Roth said he would have been inside OJ Simpson’s famous white Branco in the chase seen around the world, he would have become a world-famous ballroom dancer who got the chance to dance with Princess Diana, he would have met and befriended a Native American woman on a bus who led him to his newfound calling in life as a bingo caller, and while he would have been waiting for her on a bench outside a building in Oklahoma City, the infamous 1995 Oklahoma City bombing would have taken place behind him.
That’s a lot to process. The film ultimately didn’t happen because of the events of September 11, 2001, as Roth said the timing sort of made the script and the story feel meaningless. Maybe that’s for the better. That storyline seems a little too wild, and I’m just truly unsure that they could have struck gold again in finding the magic that made Forrest Gump the cinematic success it was the first time around.
What do you think? Does this story sound insane, or would you have loved to see Forrest Gump carry out a few more historic adventures?