Where this was said
The Forrest Gump Sequel That 9/11 Killed
At 29:27 · chapter starts 26:20
Honey Clark asks whether any author has written a book sequel after their film adaptation became a hit, and whether those sequels were any good. Richard Osman zeroes in on the perfect case study: Winston Groom's 'Gump and Co.', written after the 1994 Forrest Gump film became a cultural phenomenon. The original novel had been a perfectly respectable 1986 publication; the film was beyond enormous. Groom immediately wrote a sequel featuring Forrest inventing New Coke, causing the fall of the Berlin Wall, capturing Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, and — in the episode's most meta moment — meeting Tom Hanks himself on the set of Big, unaware that Hanks had played him in a movie. Paramount greenlighted an adaptation. Eric Roth wrote the screenplay [1] — Richard Osman "The Forrest Gump sequel script landed on Paramount's desk on September 10, 2001. Tom Hanks, Robert Zemeckis and Eric Roth collectively agre…" 27:00 . He delivered it on September 10th, 2001. The following morning, the Twin Towers fell. Tom Hanks, Robert Zemeckis, and Roth collectively agreed that a tragicomedy about a simple man blundering through American history had no meaning anymore. Marina Hyde adds a layer of cynicism: 9/11 gave the entertainment industry the perfect vocabulary to kill projects that were already looking shaky, a phenomenon she describes with characteristic precision. The Forrest Gump sequel has never been made.
The Forrest Gump sequel script landed on Paramount's desk on September 10, 2001. Tom Hanks, Robert Zemeckis and Eric Roth collectively agreed the next morning that a tragicomedy about a simple man stumbling through American history had no meaning anymore.
In 'Gump and Co.', Forrest Gump invents New Coke, meets the real Tom Hanks on set while he's filming Big, causes the fall of the Berlin Wall, and captures Saddam Hussein during Gulf War I. It was greenlit by Paramount. It was never made.
Winston Groom wrote the Forrest Gump sequel 'Gump and Co.' after the 1994 movie became a massive hit, even though the original book was published in 1986.
The Forrest Gump 2 screenplay was delivered on September 10, 2001 — one day before 9/11 — which led Tom Hanks, Zemeckis and Roth to shelve it permanently.
