Principal photography took place between August and December 1993, mainly inGeorgia,North Carolina, andSouth Carolina. Extensive visual effects were used to incorporate Hanks into archived footage and to develop other scenes. Thesoundtrack features songs reflecting the different periods seen in the film. Various interpretations have been made of the protagonist and the film's political symbolism.
In 1981 a feather lands at a bus stop inSavannah, Georgia, where Forrest Gump recounts his life story to strangers on a bus bench.
In 1950sAlabama, Forrest is fitted withleg braces to correcta curved spine. His mother runs a boarding house out of their home. Among their tenants isElvis Presley, who incorporates Forrest's jerky dance movements into his performances. On his first day of school, Forrest befriends a girl named Jenny Curran.
After graduating college in 1966, Forrest is drafted into theU.S. Army where he befriends Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue, who convinces Forrest to go into theshrimping business with him after their service. They arrive inVietnam in 1967 and serve with the9th Infantry Division in theMekong Delta. Their platoon is ambushed during a patrol, Bubba is killed in action, and Forrest saves several wounded platoon mates – including his lieutenant, Dan Taylor. Forrest is awarded theMedal of Honor for his heroism by PresidentLyndon B. Johnson.
Discharged from the Army, Forrest returns to Alabama and endorses a ping-pong paddle manufacturer, using the earnings to buy a shrimping boat inBayou La Batre, fulfilling his promise to Bubba. Dan joins Forrest in 1974, and their lack of success changes when their boat becomes the sole survivor ofHurricane Carmen. They create theBubba Gump Shrimp Company, Dan reconciles himself to his disabilities, and finally thanks Forrest for saving his life. Forrest returns home to his mother as she dies ofcancer. Dan invests inApple Computer and the two become millionaires, but Forrest also shares their earnings with the community and Bubba's family.
Jenny returns to stay with Forrest in 1976, recovering from years of child abuse, drugs, and prostitution. When Forrest proposes to her, she tells him she loves him and the two have sex, but she leaves the next morning. Heartbroken, Forrest spends the next three years in a relentless cross-country run.
In 1981, Forrest reveals that he is waiting at the bus stop because he received a letter from Jenny inviting him to visit. She introduces him to their son, Forrest Gump Jr. Jenny tells Forrest she is sick with an unknown incurable virus, and the three move back to Alabama. Jenny and Forrest marry, but she dies a year later. Forrest sends his son off on his first day of school as the feather from the movie's opening floats on the wind.
Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump: At an early age, Forrest is deemed to havea below-average IQ of 75. He has an endearing character and shows devotion to his loved ones and duties, character traits that bring him into many life-changing situations. Along the way, he encounters many historical figures and events throughout his life. Hanks also briefly playsNathan Bedford Forrest inThe Birth of a Nation scene.
Michael Conner Humphreys as young Forrest Gump: Hanks revealed in interviews that instead of having Humphreys copy his accent, he incorporated Humphreys' unique Southern accented drawl into the older character's accent.[6]
Robin Wright as Jenny Curran: Forrest's childhood friend with whom he immediately falls in love, and never stops loving throughout his life. A victim ofchild sexual abuse at the hands of her bitter, widowed father, Jenny embarks on a different path from Forrest, leading a self-destructive life and becoming part of thehippie movement in California in the 1960s and the followingMe Decade's sex and drug culture of the 1970s. She re-enters Forrest's life at various times in adulthood. Jenny eventually becomes a waitress in Savannah, Georgia, where she lives in an apartment with her (and Forrest's) son, Forrest Jr. They eventually get married, but soon afterward she dies from complications due to an unnamed disease. This unknown disease was intended by Winston Groom, the author of the original novel, to beHepatitis C, itself an "unknown virus" until defined in April 1989,[7][8] although some of the makers of the film have said that they intended for the unknown disease to have beenHIV/AIDS.[9][10][11]
Gary Sinise asLieutenant Dan Taylor: Forrest and Bubba Blue's platoon leader during the Vietnam War, whose ancestors have died in every U.S. war and who regards it as his destiny to do the same. After losing his legs in an ambush and being rescued against his will by Forrest, he is initially bitter and antagonistic toward Forrest for leaving him a "cripple" and denying him his family's destiny, falling into a deep depression. He later serves as Forrest's first mate at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, gives most of the orders, becomes wealthy with Forrest, and regains his will to live. He ultimately forgives and thanks Forrest for saving his life. By the end of the film, he is engaged to be married to his fiancée Susan and is sporting "magic legs" –titanium alloyprosthetics that allow him to walk again.
Mykelti Williamson as Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue: Bubba was originally supposed to be the senior partner in the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, but due to his death inVietnam, their platoon leader, Dan Taylor, took his place. The company posthumously carried his name. Forrest later gave Bubba's mother (Marlena Smalls) Bubba's share of the business. Throughout filming, Williamson wore a lip attachment to create Bubba's protruding lip.[12]
Sally Field as Mrs. Gump: Forrest's mother. Field reflected on the character, "She's a woman who loves her son unconditionally. ... A lot of her dialogue sounds like slogans, and that's just what she intends."[13]
Haley Joel Osment as Forrest Gump Jr.: Osment was cast in the film after the casting director noticed him in a 1993Pizza Hut commercial. It was his debut feature film role.[14][15]
Tiffany Salerno and Marla Sucharetza as "Cunning" Carla and "Long-Limbs" Lenore: a couple of prostitutes that Forrest and Dan spend a New Year's evening with and later turn away.[18][19]
"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."
The film is based on the 1986novel byWinston 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.[21]
Gump's core character and personality are also changed from the novel; among other things, his film character is less of asavant – 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.[21] The novel also features Gump as anastronaut, aprofessional wrestler, and achess player.[21]
The book had a bidding war regarding an adaptation even before publication, withWendy Finerman andSteve Tisch acquiring them by joining forces withWarner Bros., where Finerman's husbandMark Canton was president of production.[22] Groom was paid $500,000 and also wrote the first three first drafts of the screenplay, which leaned closer to the events of the novel.[23] AfterRain Man told the story of a savant, Warner Bros. lost interest in the picture, and by 1990 the project was inturnaround. Finerman contactedColumbia Pictures, who went on to reject it,[24] while hiringEric Roth to rewrite the script. Roth and Finerman kept in contact with Groom to ensure the script was historically accurate.[23] Roth delivered a screenplay in 1992, whichParamount Pictures chairwomanSherry Lansing liked enough to bring the project to her studio, who acquired the rights from Warner Bros. in exchange for the script forExecutive Decision.[25][26]
John Travolta was the original choice to play the title role and later said that passing on the role was a mistake.[30][31][32]Bill Murray,Chevy Chase, andMatthew Broderick were also considered for the role.[33]Sean Penn had stated in an interview that he had been the second choice for the role; he would later portray a character with a disability in the 2001 filmI Am Sam. Tom Hanks revealed that he signed on to the film after an hour and a half of reading the script.[34] He initially wanted to ease Forrest's pronounced Southern accent, but was eventually persuaded by directorRobert Zemeckis to portray the heavy accent stressed in the novel.[34] Hanks also said it took him three days producing unusable footage in order to learn how to play the role.[35]Winston Groom, who wrote the original novel, describes the film as having taken the "rough edges" off the character whom he had envisioned being played byJohn Goodman.[36] Additionally, Tom's younger brotherJim Hanks is his acting double in the movie for the scenes whenever Forrest was running.[37] Tom's daughter Elizabeth Hanks appears in the movie as the girl on the school bus who refuses to let young Forrest sit next to her.[38] Sally Field agreed to take on the role of Mrs. Gump after reading the script.[39]Joe Pesci andKevin Bacon were considered for the role of Lieutenant Dan Taylor, which was eventually given toGary Sinise.[40][41] Sinise drew inspiration from the struggles thatVietnam War veterans, some on his wife's side of his family, were going through when returning from serving in Vietnam.[42]David Alan Grier,Ice Cube andDave Chappelle were offered the role of Benjamin Buford Blue, but all three turned it down.[43][44] Chappelle, who said he believed the film would be unsuccessful, has been reported as saying that he regrets not taking the role. Hanks was aware of Chappelle's disappointment in missing out on the part and agreed to work with him in a future movie, which ended up beingYou've Got Mail.[43] RapperTupac Shakur also auditioned.[45]
Filming began in August 1993 and ended in December of that year.[46] Although most of the film is set in Alabama, filming took place mainly in and aroundBeaufort, South Carolina, as well as parts of coastal Virginia and North Carolina,[34] including a running shot on theBlue Ridge Parkway nearGrandfather Mountain where a part of the road subsequently became known as "Forrest Gump Curve".[47][48] Downtown portions of the fictional town of Greenbow were filmed inVarnville, South Carolina.[49] The studio was about to pull the plug on the film, until Zemeckis and Hanks cut the running sequence in the middle. Zemeckis and Hanks used their own money for the sequence.[50] The scene of Forrest running through Vietnam while under fire was filmed onHunting Island State Park andFripp Island, South Carolina.[51] Additional filming took place on theBiltmore Estate inAsheville, North Carolina.
Gump with President Kennedy. A variety of visual effects were used to incorporate Hanks into archive footage with various historical figures and events.
Ken Ralston and his team atIndustrial Light & Magic were responsible for the film's visual effects. UsingCGI techniques, it was possible to depict Gump meeting deceased personages and shaking their hands. Hanks was first shot against ablue screen along with reference markers so that he could line up with the archive footage.[54] To record the voices of the historical figures, voice actors were filmed and special effects were used to alterlip-syncing for the new dialogue.[20] Archival footage was used and with the help of such techniques aschroma key,image warping,morphing, androtoscoping, Hanks was integrated into it.
In one Vietnam War scene, Gump carries Bubba away from an incomingnapalm attack. To create the effect,stunt actors were initially used forcompositing purposes. Then, Hanks and Williamson were filmed, with Williamson supported by a cable wire as Hanks ran with him. The explosion was then filmed, and the actors were digitally added to appear just in front of the explosions. The jet fighters and napalm canisters were also added by CGI.[55]
The CGI removal of actorGary Sinise's legs, after his character had them amputated, was achieved by wrapping his legs with a blue fabric, which later facilitated the work of the "roto-paint" team to paint out his legs from every single frame. At one point, while hoisting himself into hiswheelchair, his legs are used for support.[56]
The scene where Forrest spots Jenny at apeace rally at theLincoln Memorial andReflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., required visual effects to create the large crowd of people. Over two days of filming, approximately 1,500extras were used.[57] At each successive take, the extras were rearranged and moved into a differentquadrant away from the camera. With the help of computers, the extras were multiplied to create a crowd of several hundred thousand people.[34][57]
Produced on a budget of $55 million,Forrest Gump opened in 1,332 theaters in the United States and Canada on Wednesday, July 6, 1994, and grossed more than $8 million in its first two days before expanding on Friday to 1,595 theaters and grossing $24,450,602 in its opening weekend, Paramount's biggest opening non-holiday weekend gross, surpassing the record set byThe Addams Family.[58] Motion picture business consultant and screenwriter Jeffrey Hilton suggested to producerWendy 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 placedfirst at the US box office, narrowly beatingThe Lion King, which was in its fourth week of release.[59] 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, when it surpassedRaiders of the Lost Ark as Paramount's highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada.[60][61] 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, behindThe Lion King with $305 million.[62][63] The film was reissued on February 17, 1995, after theAcademy Awards nominations were announced.[64] 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 onlyE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial andJurassic Park.[60][65][66]Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 78.5 million tickets in the US and Canada in its initial theatrical run.[67]
The film was the fastest grossing Paramount film to pass $100 million (18 days), $200 million (46 days; fourth fastest in history), and $300 million (193 days) in box office receipts (at the time of its release).[68][69][70][71] 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. Ultimately, it finished as the fourth highest grossingfilm of the 1990s in the United States and Canada.[72]
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.[73] This has also been associated withHollywood accounting, where expenses are inflated to minimize profit sharing.[74]
Forrest Gump held the record for being the highest-grossing Paramount film until it was overtaken byTitanic three years later in 1997. However, it remained the highest-grossing film solely distributed by Paramount until it was surpassed byShrek the Third 13 years later in 2007.[75]
For 12 years, it remained as the highest-grossing film starring Tom Hanks; it was surpassed in 2006 byThe Da Vinci Code.[76]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 75% of 158 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The website's consensus reads: "Tom Hanks' rigorously earnest performance keepsForrest Gump sincere even when it gets glib with American history, making for a whimsical odyssey of debatable wisdom but undeniable heart."[77] At the websiteMetacritic, the film earned a rating of 82 out of 100 based on 21 reviews by mainstream critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[78] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film a rare "A+" grade.[79]
The story was commended by several critics.Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times wrote, "I've never met anyone like Forrest Gump in a movie before, and for that matter I've never seen a movie quite like 'Forrest Gump.' Any attempt to describe him will risk making the movie seem more conventional than it is, but let me try. It's a comedy, I guess. Or maybe a drama. Or a dream. The screenplay byEric Roth has the complexity of modern fiction...The performance is a breathtaking balancing act between comedy and sadness, in a story rich in big laughs and quiet truths...What a magical movie."[80] Todd McCarthy ofVariety wrote that the film "has been very well worked out on all levels, and manages the difficult feat of being an intimate, even delicate tale played with an appealingly light touch against an epic backdrop."[81] In contrast,Anthony Lane ofThe New Yorker called the film "Warm, wise, and wearisome as hell."[82]Owen Gleiberman ofEntertainment Weekly said that the film was "glib, shallow, and monotonous" and "reduces the tumult of the last few decades to a virtual-reality theme park: a baby-boomer version ofDisney's America."[83]
Gump garnered comparisons to fictional characterHuckleberry Finn, as well as U.S. politiciansRonald Reagan,Pat Buchanan andBill Clinton.[84][85][86][87] Peter Chomo writes that Gump acts as a "social mediator and as an agent of redemption in divided times".[88]Peter Travers ofRolling Stone called Gump "everything we admire in the American character – honest, brave, and loyal with a heart of gold."[89]The New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin called Gump a "hollow man" who is "self-congratulatory in his blissful ignorance, warmly embraced as the embodiment of absolutely nothing."[90] Marc Vincenti ofPalo Alto Weekly called the character "a pitiful stooge taking the pie of life in the face, thoughtfully licking his fingers."[91] Bruce Kawin andGerald Mast's textbook on film history notes that Forrest Gump's dimness was a metaphor for glamorized nostalgia in that he represented a blank slate onto which theBaby Boomer generation projected their memories of those events.[92]
Writing in 2004,Entertainment Weekly said, "Nearly a decade after it earned gazillions and swept the Oscars, Robert Zemeckis' ode to 20th-century America still represents one of cinema's most clearly drawn lines in the sand. One half of folks see it as an artificial piece of pop melodrama, while everyone else raves that it's sweet as a box of chocolates."[93]
In 2015,The Hollywood Reporter polled hundreds of academy members, asking them to re-vote on past controversial decisions. Academy members said that, given a second chance, they would award the 1994 Oscar forBest Picture toThe Shawshank Redemption instead.[94]
Winston Groom was paid $350,000 for the screenplay rights to his novelForrest Gump and was contracted for a 3 percent share of the film'snet profits.[95] However, Paramount and the film's producers did not pay him the percentage, usingHollywood accounting to posit that the blockbuster film lost money. Tom Hanks, by contrast, contracted for a percent share of the film'sgross receipts instead of a salary, and he and director Zemeckis each received $40 million.[95][96] In addition, Groom was not mentioned once in any of the film's six Oscar-winner speeches.[97]
Groom's dispute with Paramount was later effectively resolved after Groom declared he was satisfied with Paramount's explanation of their accounting, this coinciding with Groom receiving a seven-figure contract with Paramount for film rights to another of his books,Gump & Co.[98] This film was never made, remaining indevelopment hell for at least a dozen years.[99]
Forrest Gump was first released onVHS on April 27, 1995, and onLaserdisc the following day. The laserdisc wasTHX certified and released without chapters, requiring the film be watched start to finish. Film magazines of the period stated this was at the request of Zemeckis who wanted viewers to enjoy the film in its entirety. It became the best-selling adult sell-through video, with sales of over 12 million.[100] A widescreen VHS release debuted a year later on September 10, 1996.[101] It was released in a two-discDVD set on August 28, 2001.[102] Special features included director and producer commentaries, production featurettes, and screen tests.[103] The film was released onBlu-ray in November 2009.[104] Paramount released the film onUltra HD Blu-ray in June 2018.[105] On May 7, 2019, Paramount Pictures released a newly remastered two-disc Blu-ray that contains bonus content.[106]
In December 2011,Forrest Gump was selected for preservation in theLibrary of Congress'National Film Registry.[110] The Registry said that the film was "honored for its technological innovations (the digital insertion of Gump seamlessly into vintage archivalfootage), its resonance within the culture that has elevated Gump (and what he represents in terms of American innocence) to the status of folk hero, and its attempt to engage both playfully and seriously with contentious aspects of the era's traumatic history."[111]
"I don't want to sound like a bad version of 'the child within'. But the childlike innocence of Forrest Gump is what we all once had. It's an emotional journey. You laugh and cry. It does what movies are supposed to do: make you feel alive."
Various interpretations have been suggested for the feather present at the opening and conclusion of the film. Sarah Lyall ofThe New York Times noted several suggestions made about the feather: "Does the white feather symbolizeThe Unbearable Lightness of Being? Forrest Gump's impaired intellect? The randomness of experience?"[112] Hanks interpreted the feather as: "Our destiny is only defined by how we deal with the chance elements to our life and that's kind of the embodiment of the feather as it comes in. Here is this thing that can land anywhere and that it lands at your feet. It has theological implications that are really huge."[113] Sally Field compared the feather to fate, saying: "It blows in the wind and just touches down here or there. Was it planned or was it just perchance?"[114] Visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston compared the feather to an abstract painting: "It can mean so many things to so many different people."[115]
Hanks states that "the film is non-political and thus non-judgmental".[86] Nevertheless, CNN'sCrossfire debated in 1994 whether the film promoted conservative values or was an indictment of thecounterculture of the 1960s. Thomas Byers called it "an aggressively conservative film" in aModern Fiction Studies article.[116]
All over the political map, people have been calling Forrest their own. But,Forrest Gump isn't about politics or conservative values. It's about humanity, it's about respect, tolerance and unconditional love.
It has been noted that while Gump follows a very conservative lifestyle, Jenny's life is full of countercultural embrace, complete with drug use, promiscuity, and antiwar rallies, and that their eventual marriage might be a kind of reconciliation.[80] Jennifer Hyland Wang argues in aCinema Journal article that Jenny's death to an unnamed virus "symbolizes the death of liberal America and the death of the protests that defined a decade" in the 1960s. She also notes that the film's screenwriter,Eric Roth, developed the screenplay from the novel and transferred to Jenny "all of Gump's flaws and most of the excesses committed by Americans in the 1960s and 1970s".[88]
Other commentators believe the film forecast the 1994Republican Revolution and used the image of Forrest Gump to promote movement leaderNewt Gingrich's traditional, conservative values. Jennifer Hyland Wang observes that the film idealizes the 1950s, as made evident by the lack of "Whites Only"-signs in Gump's Southern childhood, and envisions the 1960s as a period of social conflict and confusion. She argues that this sharp contrast between the decades criticizes the counterculture values and reaffirms conservatism.[88] Wang argues that the film was used by Republican politicians to illustrate a "traditional version of recent history" to gear voters toward their ideology for the congressional elections.[88] Presidential candidateBob Dole stated that the film's message was "no matter how great the adversity, the American Dream is within everybody's reach".[88]
In 1995,National Review includedForrest Gump in its list of the "Best 100 Conservative Movies" of all time,[117] and ranked it number four on its "25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years" list.[118]National Review's John Miller wrote that "Tom Hanks plays the title-character, an amiable dunce who is far too smart to embrace the lethal values of the 1960s. The love of his life, wonderfully played by Robin Wright Penn, chooses a different path; she becomes a drug-addled hippie, with disastrous results."[119]
Professor James Burton atSalisbury University argues that conservatives claimedForrest Gump as their own due less to the content of the film and more to the historical and cultural context of 1994. Burton claims that the film's content and advertising campaign were affected by the cultural climate of the 1990s, which emphasizedfamily values and American values, epitomized in the bookHollywood vs. America. He claims that this climate influenced the apolitical nature of the film, which allowed many different political interpretations.[120]
Some commentators see the conservative readings ofForrest Gump as indicating the death of irony in American culture. Vivian Sobchack notes that the film's humor and irony rely on the assumption of the audience's historical knowledge.[120]
The soundtrack reached a peak of number 2 on theBillboard album chart.[121] The soundtrack went on to sell twelve million copies, and is one of the top selling albums in the US.[122] The Oscar-nominatedscore for the film was composed and conducted byAlan Silvestri and released on August 2, 1994.
The screenplay for the sequel was written byEric Roth in 2001. It is based on the original novel's sequel,Gump and Co., written by Winston Groom in 1995. Roth's script begins with Forrest sitting on a bench waiting for his son to return from school. After theSeptember 11 attacks, Roth, Zemeckis, and Hanks decided the story was no longer "relevant."[123] In March 2007, however, it was reported Paramount producers took another look at the screenplay.[99]
On the first page of the sequel novel, Forrest Gump tells readers "Don't never let nobody make a movie of your life's story," and "Whether they get it right or wrong, it doesn't matter."[124] The first chapter of the book suggests the real-life events surrounding the film have been incorporated into Forrest's storyline, and that Forrest got a lot of media attention as a result of the film.[21] During the course of the sequel novel, Gump runs into Tom Hanks and at the end of the novel in the film's release, includes Gump going onThe David Letterman Show and attending theAcademy Awards.
Following the advent of AI video editing, several fake trailers were created and gained attention, some featuring an older Tom Hanks costarring with actors likeTom Holland orTimothée Chalamet.[126] Hanks himself has said that he is glad that a sequel was never made, given the completeness of the original film.[126]
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^Polowy, Kevin (March 18, 2019)."The 'Forrest Gump' sequel that never was, from O.J. to Oklahoma City".Yahoo! Entertainment.Yahoo!.Archived from the original on June 20, 2022. RetrievedJune 19, 2022.It [the Forrest Gump sequel] was gonna start with his little boy having AIDS. And people wouldn't go to class with him in Florida. We had a funny sequence where they were [desegregation] busing in Florida at the same time, so people were angry about either the busing, or [their] kids having to go to school with the kid who had AIDS. So there was a big conflict.
^Burr, Ty (June 20, 1994)."Loss of innocence: 'Forrest Gump' at 10".The Boston Globe.Archived from the original on January 13, 2012. RetrievedOctober 20, 2010.Film critic Pauline Kael came out of retirement to bash the film on a book tour; by year's end, New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin had gone from mildly praising the film in her initial review to putting it on her worst of 1994 list, describing Forrest as a "hollow man" who's 'self-congratulatory in his blissful ignorance, warmly embraced as the embodiment of absolutely nothing.'
^Mast, Gerald (2007).A Short History of the Movies: 10th Edition. London: Longman.
^Bal, Sumeet; Marc Bernardin; Monica Mehta; Joshua Rich; Erin Richter; Michael Sauter; Missy Schwartz; Nancy Sidewater (January 9, 2004)."Cry Hard 2 The Readers Strike Back".Entertainment Weekly.Archived from the original on April 12, 2011. RetrievedOctober 20, 2010.
^Davis, Charles E. (Summer 1997). "Accounting is like a box of chocolates: A lesson in cost behavior".Journal of Accounting Education.15 (3):307–318.doi:10.1016/S0748-5751(97)00008-0.
^Forrest Gump-(Through the eyes of Forrest Gump) (DVD).Paramount Pictures. August 28, 2001. Event occurs at 23:27.
^Forrest Gump-(Through the eyes of Forrest Gump) (DVD).Paramount Pictures. August 28, 2001. Event occurs at 23:57.
^Forrest Gump-(Through the eyes of Forrest Gump) (DVD).Paramount Pictures. August 28, 2001. Event occurs at 26:29.
^abByers, Thomas B. (1996). "History Re-Membered: Forrest Gump, Postfeminist Masculinity, and the Burial of the Counterculture".Modern Fiction Studies.42 (2):419–444.doi:10.1353/mfs.1995.0102.S2CID161822250.
^Quillen, Ed (May 7, 1995). "Why are modern conservatives so enchanted with Forrest Gump?".The Denver Post.