Tom Hanks is known in Hollywood for being a very nice guy and now it turns out he's very generous as well. The actor has revealed that he helped pay for one of the more iconic scenes in the Oscar-winning FORREST GUMP.
Hanks was recently a guest on "In Depth" and he says that he and Robert Zemeckis ended up in a battle with the studio over the iconic cross country run scene featured in the 1994 classic. Hanks said that the studio said "we can't afford it" and wouldn't allow them to film it. Zemeckis then argued that it was too important for the movie to be cut out. Ultimately, Zemeckis sat down with Hanks to discuss expanding the scope of their partnership, which led to them splitting the additional cost of the scene:
"And [Robert Zemeckis] said 'Well, this run is going to cost X amount of dollars.' And it wasn't cheap. And I said 'OK'. He said, 'You and I are going to split that amount, and we're going to give it back (to Paramount). We'll give you the money back, but you guys (Paramount) are going to have to share the profits a little bit more.' Which the studio said 'Fabulous, great. OK.' And it was good for us, too."
The crazy thing is that Hanks had to open up his pocket AGAIN for another scene. The actor didn't reveal which scene it was but it appears it was a scene that Paramount Pictures couldn't get insurance for:
"They said 'The weather is such that we can't get the insurance coverage on it,' the studio said, 'So you guys can't shoot.' And Bob and I said, 'We'll cover the insuranced.' And we did."
It's hard to believe that Paramount didn't want to fork over the money for certain scenes, especially considering the success that FORREST GUMP turned out to be. The film earned an incredible $695.4 million at the global box office and it ended up winning Best Picture at the Oscars. Tom Hanks also won Best Actor for the second year in the row that year after his Best Actor win for PHILADELPHIA the year before. As for the profits, Hanks didn't comment in the interview but it is estimated that he took home around $70 million, given how well the movie performed so I guess it was money well spent.
Do you think FORREST GUMP would've been the same without that iconic scene?