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Forrest Gump is a 1994 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Eric Roth. It is based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom and stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson and Sally Field. The story depicts several decades in the life of Forrest Gump (Hanks), a slow-witted and kindhearted man from Alabama who witnesses and unwittingly influences several defining historical events in the 20th-century United States. The film differs substantially from the novel.

Principal photography took place between August and December 1993, mainly in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Extensive visual effects were used to incorporate Hanks into archived footage and to develop other scenes. The soundtrack features songs reflecting the different periods seen in the film.

Forrest Gump was released in the United States on July 6, 1994, and received critical acclaim for Zemeckis's direction, performances (particularly those of Hanks and Sinise), visual effects, music, and screenplay. The film was an enormous success at the box office; it became the top-grossing film in America released that year and earned over US$678.2 million worldwide during its theatrical run, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 1994, behind The Lion King. The soundtrack sold over 12 million copies. Forrest Gump won six Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Hanks, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, and Best Film Editing. It received many award nominations, including Golden Globes, British Academy Film Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

In the 21st century, the film became negatively re-assesed. Various interpretations have been made of the protagonist and the film's political symbolism. In 2011, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In 1981, at a bus stop in Savannah, Georgia, a man named Forrest Gump recounts his life story to strangers who happen to sit next to him on the bench. As a boy in 1956, young Forrest has an IQ of 75 and is fitted with leg braces to correct a curved spine. He lives in Greenbow, Alabama with his mother, who runs a boarding house and encourages him to live beyond his disabilities. Among their temporary tenants is a young Elvis Presley, who plays the guitar for Forrest and incorporates the boy's jerky dance movements into his performances. On his first day of school, Forrest meets a girl named Jenny Curran, and the two become best friends.

Bullied because of his leg braces and dim-witted appearance, Forrest flees from a group of children, but when his braces break off, he is revealed to be a fast runner. With this talent, he receives a football scholarship at the University of Alabama in 1962, where he is coached by Bear Bryant, becomes a top kick returner, is named to the All-American team, and meets President John F. Kennedy at the White House. In his first year at college, he witnesses Governor George Wallace's Stand in the Schoolhouse Door and returns a dropped book to Vivian Malone Jones, one of the students admitted over state resistance.

After graduating college in 1966, Forrest enlists in the U.S. Army. During basic training, he befriends a fellow soldier named Benjamin Buford Blue (nicknamed "Bubba"), who convinces Forrest to go into the shrimping business with him after their service. Later that year, they are sent to Vietnam, serving with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta region under Lieutenant Dan Taylor. After months of routine operations, their platoon is ambushed while on patrol, and Bubba is killed in action. Forrest saves several wounded platoonmates – and Lieutenant Dan, who loses both his legs. Taylor is embittered to have been saved by Forrest; he would rather have died in combat like his ancestors before him, but he is returned to the United States. Forrest is awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

At an anti-war March on the Pentagon rally, Forrest meets Abbie Hoffman and briefly reunites with Jenny, who has become a drug-addicted hippie and anti-war activist. He also develops a talent for ping-pong, and becomes a sports celebrity competing against Chinese teams in ping-pong diplomacy, earning him an interview alongside John Lennon of the Beatles on The Dick Cavett Show. He appears to influence Lennon's song, "Imagine". Forrest spends 1972 New Year's Eve in New York City with Lieutenant Dan, who has become an alcoholic, still bitter about his disability and the government's apathy towards Vietnam veterans. Forrest's ping-pong success eventually leads to a meeting with President Richard Nixon. For this event, he is given a room in the Watergate complex, where he unwittingly exposes the Watergate scandal.

Discharged from the army, Forrest returns to Greenbow and endorses a company that makes ping-pong paddles. He uses the earnings to buy a shrimping boat in Bayou La Batre, fulfilling his promise to Bubba. Lieutenant Dan joins Forrest in 1974, and they initially have little success. After their boat becomes the only one to survive Hurricane Carmen, they pull in huge amounts of shrimp and create the profitable Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Lieutenant Dan finally thanks Forrest for saving his life. Dan invests in early Apple stock, which Forrest thinks is "some kind of fruit company", and the two become millionaires. Forrest gives half of his earnings to Bubba's family for having inspired the shrimping venture. Forrest returns home to his mother and cares for her during her terminal illness from cancer.

In 1976, Jenny – recovering from years of drugs and abuse – returns to visit Forrest. He proposes to her, and that night she tells Forrest she loves him and the two make love, though she leaves the next morning. Heartbroken, Forrest goes running "for no particular reason" and spends the next three years in a relentless cross-country marathon, becoming famous for another feat before returning to Greenbow. In 1981, Forrest reveals that he is waiting at the bus stop because he received a letter from Jenny, who asked him to visit her. Forrest is finally reunited with Jenny, who introduces him to their young son, whom she named Forrest Gump Jr. Jenny tells Forrest she is sick with an "unknown virus". The three move back to Greenbow and Jenny and Forrest finally marry, but she dies a year later. The film ends with Forrest sending his son off on his first day of school.

Script

Main article: Forrest Gump (novel)

"The writer, Eric Roth, departed substantially from the book. We flipped the two elements of the book, making the love story primary and the fantastic adventures secondary. Also, the book was cynical and colder than the movie. In the movie, Gump is a completely decent character, always true to his word. He has no agenda and no opinion about anything except Jenny, his mother and God."

—director Robert Zemeckis

The film is based on the 1986 novel by Winston Groom. Both center on the character of Forrest Gump. However, the film primarily focuses on the first eleven chapters of the novel, before skipping ahead to the end of the novel with the founding of Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and the meeting with Forrest Jr. In addition to skipping some parts of the novel, the film adds several aspects to Gump's life that do not occur in the novel, such as his needing leg braces as a child and his run across the United States.

Gump's core character and personality are also changed from the novel; among other things his film character is less of a savant—in the novel, while playing football at the university, he fails craft and gym, but receives a perfect score in an advanced physics class he is enrolled in by his coach to satisfy his college requirements. The novel also features Gump as an astronaut, a professional wrestler, and a chess player.

Two directors were offered the opportunity to direct the film before Robert Zemeckis was selected. Terry Gilliam turned down the offer.Barry Sonnenfeld was attached to the film, but left to direct Addams Family Values.

Box office

Produced on a budget of $55 million, Forrest Gump opened in 1,595 theaters in the United States and Canada grossing $24,450,602 in its opening weekend. Motion picture business consultant and screenwriter Jeffrey Hilton suggested to producer Wendy Finerman to double the P&A (film marketing budget) based on his viewing of an early print of the film. The budget was immediately increased, in line with his advice. In its opening weekend, the film placed first at the US box office, narrowly beating The Lion King, which was in its fourth week of release. For the first twelve weeks of release, the film was in the top 3 at the US box office, topping the list 5 times, including in its tenth week of release.[41] Paramount removed the film from release in the United States when its gross hit $300 million in January 1995, and it was the second-highest-grossing film of the year behind The Lion King with $305 million.[42][43] The film was reissued on February 17, 1995, after the Academy Awards nominations were announced.[44] After the reissue in 1,100 theaters, the film grossed an additional $29 million in the United States and Canada, bringing its total to $329.7 million, making it the third-highest-grossing film at that time behind only E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park, and was Paramount's biggest, surpassing Raiders of the Lost Ark. Forrest Gump held the record for being the highest-grossing Paramount film until it was taken by Titanic three years later in 1997. For 12 years, it remained as the highest-grossing film starring Tom Hanks until 2006 when it was surpassed by The Da Vinci Code.[48] Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 78.5 million tickets in the US and Canada in its initial theatrical run.

The film took 66 days to surpass $250 million and was the fastest grossing Paramount film to pass $100 million, $200 million, and $300 million in box office receipts (at the time of its release). After reissues, the film has gross receipts of $330,252,182 in the U.S. and Canada and $347,693,217 in international markets for a total of $677,945,399 worldwide. Even with such revenue, the film was known as a "successful failure"—due to distributors' and exhibitors' high fees, Paramount's "losses" clocked in at $62 million, leaving executives realizing the necessity of better deals. This has also been associated with Hollywood accounting, where expenses are inflated in order to minimize profit sharing. It is Robert Zemeckis' highest-grossing film to date.

Courtesy--wikipedia
- Forrest Gump

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