A 13 Jul 1994 NYT article stated that producer Wendy Finerman first read galley proofs of Winston Groom’s novel Forrest Gump in 1985 and brought it to producer Steve Tisch with whom she was working at Tisch’s production company. Groom wrote the first version of the screenplay, and two other writers made attempts before screenwriter Eric Roth was hired. In the meantime, Warner Bros., Inc., the studio that had first purchased the film rights to the novel for the producers, dropped out of the project, due in part to its similarities to Rain Man (1988, see entry). Finerman later set up the project with Paramount Pictures Corp., and, once Roth had written the screenplay, Tom Hanks agreed to play “Forrest Gump.” With Hanks’s participation, the film received a green-light from Paramount, and Robert Zemeckis, “the producers’ first choice,” was hired to direct.
       As stated in a 7 Mar 1995 WSJ article, the film was initially budgeted at $50 million; however, shortly before production was set to commence, Paramount asked the producers to cut $10 million in costs. A large portion of those cuts came out of the salaries for Hanks and Zemeckis, originally estimated at $7 million and $5 million respectively. The actor and director exchanged upfront payments for a portion of the gross profits, an arrangement that later paid off when the film became a box-office success. In a 6 Sep 1994 HR article, Zemeckis acknowledged that the last-minute budget cuts angered him. Although the director was rumored to have said he would never work with Paramount again, he told HR that he had “made [his] peace” and was willing to collaborate with the studio on future projects.
       According to production notes from AMPAS library files, filming began 8 Aug 1993 in Beaufort, SC. Other locations included Savannah, GA; Los Angeles, CA; and Washington, D.C. A special “crusade unit” shot Forrest’s running scenes in Arizona, Montana, Vermont, Maine, North Carolina, and Monument Valley, UT. Forrest’s and Mrs. Gump’s residence was a 3,500 square-foot home built by the production crew on Bluff Plantation, an 8,000-acre estate in Yemassee, SC, that also doubled as Vietnam since its “pre-existing rice fields” resembled Southeast Asian rice paddies. Another South Carolina location that doubled as Vietnam was Hunting Island State Park, where filmmakers shot helicopter scenes above a “palm-lined lagoon.” Forrest’s bus bench scenes were shot over three days in Savannah, GA’s, Chippewa Square. To recreate an anti-war demonstration outside the Washington Monument, 1,500 extras were employed, and for the first time ever, filmmakers were granted access to shoot in the Reflecting Pool by the National Park Service and the city of Washington, D.C. In Los Angeles, sets were built at Paramount and the Ambassador Hotel, and the University of Southern California’s campus served as the college settings for both Forrest and Jenny.
       Production notes stated that director of photography Don Burgess and Zemeckis chose to utilize “anamorphic lenses in filming...to reflect the epic proportion of the backdrop of Forrest’s story.” During post-production, special effects done by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) included a digital compositing process that allowed filmmakers to shoot “groups of 700” extras positioned at different points around the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., and blend the various footage so that the extras appeared to be hundreds of thousands of people. “A process of computer digitizing” was also used to combine archival footage of United States Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon, amongst other famous celebrities, with footage of Hanks in settings filmed to match “every shadow, every scratch, every moment of the corresponding cuts in the archival sequence[s].” Computers were also used to erase actor Gary Sinise’s legs after his character, “Lieutenant Dan,” lost them in the Vietnam War, as stated in a 10 Jul 1994 LAT article. Lieutenant Dan’s wheelchair was specially designed by magician Ricky Jay to allow Sinise to sit with his legs folded under while giving the illusion that his legs were amputated stubs. Also calling for special effects were Forrest’s ping-pong scenes; according to a 22 Aug 1994 People news brief, Hanks performed his ping-pong playing with only a paddle, so that the balls could be added into the scenes digitally.
       In the 6 Sep 1994 HR article, Zemeckis noted two scenes that were shot but not included in the film: a scene in which Jenny accidentally runs over her father with farm machinery, killing him; and a scene in which Forrest meets Martin Luther King. The scenes were set to be added to a “director’s cut” for the film’s laserdisc home video version, according to an 18 Sep 1994 Boston Globe news item.
       As reported in a 7 Oct 1994 NYT article, between twenty and twenty-five licenses had been set up for various Forrest Gump merchandise, including: a book of Forrest’s aphorisms used in the film, titled Gumpisms; ping-pong sets; a shrimp cookbook; and a line of seafood to be sold in grocery stores under the name “Bubba Gump Seafood Company.” A 12 Mar 1996 DV article also announced that Paramount had paired up with Rusty Pelican Restaurants to open twenty-three Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurants, largely in tourist-heavy seaside locations, with plans to decorate the establishments with Forrest Gump memorabilia and to contain Forrest Gump merchandising stores within the restaurants. As reported in a 27 Jul 1994 NYT article, Pocket Books bought the rights to Groom’s novel from Doubleday, which first printed the book in 1986, and acquired the rights to three other Groom novels in addition to making a deal with Groom to write a sequel to Forrest Gump, with publication set for 1995.
       Critical reception was mixed. Noting Zemeckis’s tendency to favor visual imagery over narrative, Janet Maslin stated in her 6 Jul 1994 NYT review that the film seemed “less like a romance than like a coffee-table book celebrating the magic of special effects.” In a mixed review on 6 Jul 1994, LAT’s Kenneth Turan lauded Hanks’s performance as the highlight of the film, but lamented the filmmakers’ attempts at making larger points about society based on Forrest’s ramblings through history. In the 29 Jun 1994 HR, reviewer Duane Byrge echoed Turan’s sentiments about Hanks, describing his performance as “Oscar-level,” and went on to say that Zemeckis had reached new heights as a director. A 31 Jul 1994 NYT article addressed the issue of Forrest Gump dissenters, stating, “To some critics, the movie is profoundly anti-intellectual, a celebration of passivity and a rejection of thoughtful analysis.” In a scathing article for Village Voice on 9 Aug 1994, Amy Taubin wrote that she “loathed the film from its first to last floating feather,” and criticized its portrayal of women as either mothers or whores, and of African-Americans as “children.”
       The film received the following six Academy Awards: Best Picture; Actor in a Leading Role – Tom Hanks; Directing; Film Editing; Visual Effects; and Writing (Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published). In addition, Forrest Gump received seven Academy Award nominations, including: Actor in a Supporting Role – Gary Sinise; Art Direction; Cinematography; Makeup; Music (Original Score); Sound; and Sound Effects Editing. Finerman, Tisch, and fellow producer Steve Starkey received the Producers Guild of America “Darryl F. Zanuck Theatrical Motion Picture Producer of the Year” award, as announced in a 17 Feb 1995 DV news item; and Sinise was honored with a Commander’s Award from the Disabled American Veterans for his portrayal of Lieutenant Dan, as announced in a 5 Aug 1994 LAT news brief. Forrest Gump also received a “Golden Duck Prize,” the Polish equivalent to the Academy Award, for best foreign film, according to a 4 Apr 1995 LAT item.
       As reported in a 25 May 1995 NYT article, novelist Winston Groom hired a lawyer after the film had taken in more than $660 million in worldwide box-office receipts, while Groom had yet to be paid any of his promised participation fees, which were three percent of the film’s net profits. However, at the time, Paramount claimed that their losses on the film still amounted to $62 million, due to various expenditures including the following: “$50 million in production costs”; distribution expenses amounting to $62 million; $74 million in promotion expenses; $62 million in fees, including gross profit participation, paid to Hanks and Zemeckis; and “$6 million for interest charges on the film’s financing.” The article added that producers Finerman and Tisch, as well as screenwriter Roth, were also owed net profit participation, but Paramount asserted that the net profit participants had been paid an advance of $3 million and that the studio was “treating everyone fairly and respectfully.” Groom eventually reached a settlement with Paramount for “an undisclosed seven-figure sum,” as stated in a 15 Jun 1995 WSJ news brief, after the studio agreed to buy worldwide film rights to Gump & Co., Groom’s upcoming sequel to Forrest Gump.
       The 25 May 1995 NYT article reported that Forrest Gump was the “third highest-grossing movie of all time” after E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982, see entry) and Jurassic Park (1993, see entry). According to the 7 Oct 1994 NYT article, the film marked the highest-grossing Paramount release to that time.
       Although Forrest’s bus bench was removed from Chippewa Square in Savannah after filming was completed, the city had requested that Paramount donate the bench and return it to the square so that it could serve as a tourist attraction, according to a 3 Oct 1994 LAT brief. However, a 9 Apr 1995 London Observer news item stated that the bench was set to be auctioned by Christie’s in Jun 1995 and was “expected to fetch between $6,000 and $8,000.”
       Forrest Gump was ranked 76th on AFI's 2007 100 Years…100 Movies--10th Anniversary Edition list of the greatest American films, down from the 71st position it held on the 1997 list.
       In the end credits, producers thank the following individuals and organizations: Dick Clark Productions, Inc., courtesy of Dick Clark Productions, Inc.; Sesame Street excerpt provided by Children’s Television Workshop (New York, New York); Milton Berle Show courtesy of the National Broadcasting Company (with performance by Elvis Presley); footage of the Kennedy assassination courtesy of Robert J. Groden; Daphne Productions, Inc. The Dick Cavett Show; UCLA Film and Television Archive; Sherman Grinberg Film Libraries; CBS News Archives; NBC News Archives; Twentieth Century Fox Movietonews; Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library; Nixon Materials Project, National Archives; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Streamline Film Archives; the Gomer Pyle film clip courtesy of Viacom Enterprises; Film Preservation Associates; Bob Hope Enterprises; Sports Illustrated magazine logo and trademark used with permission of Time Inc.; People Weekly magazine logo and trademark used with permission of the Time Inc. Magazine Company; Fortune magazine logo and trademark used with permission of Time Inc.; Runners World magazine; The National Enquirer; Russell Stover Candies; Nike, Inc.; Houghton Mifflin Company for the use of Curious George; Dr. Pepper; Lindsey Buckingham; Glen Brunman; Playboy magazine; Robert W. Smith and Colony Helicopters; South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, Hunting Island State Park; University of South Carolina – Beaufort campus; Stoney Creek Presbyterian Church in McPhersonville, South Carolina; the residents and developers of Fripp Island; City of Varnville, South Carolina; Cynthia Cole Jenkins & the Historic Beaufort Society; South Carolina Film Commission; Department of Interior, National Park Service; residents of the Watergate Hotel; City of Savannah, Georgia; the Los Angeles Motion Picture and Television Division; and Arizona and California Railroad, Ltd.