Tom Hanks Once Revealed How He Paid For An Iconic Forrest Gump Sequence Himself (Photo Credit – Facebook)
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Talk about taking a gamble. Tom Hanks literally paid for an iconic scene in Forrest Gump out of his own pocket—after Paramount almost axed them for budget reasons. Yeah, that legendary run across America? Hanks funded it himself.
During a sit-down on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Hanks spilled the tea on how he and director Robert Zemeckis had to cough up the cash to keep the iconic scenes alive. “And [Zemeckis] said ‘Well, this run is going to cost X amount of dollars,’” Hanks said. “And I said ‘ok.’” Instead of letting the scene get cut, they worked out a deal: they’d front the cost and get a bigger cut of the movie’s profits. Paramount agreed, and the duo hit the jackpot.
Forrest Gump grossed $678 million worldwide (about $1.69 billion in today’s money), and Hanks made around $65 million in profit off that move—WAY more than the movie’s original $55 million budget. Oh, and did we mention he snagged an Oscar for Best Actor in the process?
But here’s the kicker—Hanks almost didn’t nail the role. He admitted that the first days on set were tough as hell. “Look, I know what you are trying to do. I know how nervous you are and how self-conscious this can be before we get into the groove,” Zemeckis told him. “But we’re not going to use any of these first three days because I don’t think you’ve got it.” Ouch, right? But Hanks took that feedback to heart, and everything clicked after that.
And let’s be honest: the movie wouldn’t be the same without that run. It became the scene cemented into pop culture, with “Run, Forrest, run!” being a line practically everyone’s said at some point. Hanks didn’t just make a film; he created a moment.
The Here star and his brother Jim did most of the filming for that cross-country run. Hanks would shoot for 27 days straight, tackling locations all over the States. But before they started, a studio exec wanted to cut the scene. “Some studio executive always comes up and says, ‘it’s not going to work; you can’t do it; why are we shooting that?’” Hanks recalled. “And they said ‘you’re going to have to cut that.’”
Tom Hanks Thought He’d Be Fired From Forrest Gump
Naturally, Hanks thought he was about to get the axe. “I thought, ‘I am so fired now.’” But when Zemeckis showed up at his door, it wasn’t the bad news Hanks expected. “Tom, I cannot, I cannot, I cannot make a movie without the star of the movie as my soulmate. So you and I have to be joined at the hip throughout all of this.” That’s director-speak for “we’re in this together.”
Fast forward to today, and Tom Hanks is Hollywood royalty, with films that have raked in almost $10 billion worldwide. But it all started with a risky bet on a movie called Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump wasn’t just a massive hit—it was a huge win for Hanks and Zemeckis, who risked it all for that one iconic moment. And now, 30 years later, it’s safe to say they’re laughing all the way to the bank.
