Speculations have arisen that a 6 year old script written as the sequel to Forrest Gump, the 1994 multiple Oscar winner, may come off the shelf and makes its way to theaters. It would only make sense for it to be running the whole way there. The original novel by Winston Groom was released in 1992 with a follow-on sequel, Gump & Co., four years later. The first book was not very good so I never ventured into the second and based on the Amazon reviews I think I made the right choice.

So what could Groom & Co. possibly have in mind for the film version of the sequel? How about all of those unanswered questions that left us begging for me. Huh? You mean there weren’t any mysteries or loose ends to be tied up? Well then quick, make something up and it might sound like this:

Gump’s shrimp fishery has gone out of business, and Forrest will be an unemployed single father who somehow manages to be at the center of the most important historical events, this time of the 80’s and 90s. Apparently the storyline even has him meeting an actor by the name of Tom Hanks.

Oh how clever. Tom Hanks is going to meet Tom Hanks. Kinda like Julia Roberts playing Julia Roberts in Ocean’s Twelve, right? Maybe Tom can warn Tom against The Da Vinci Code.

Lightning seems to have struck with the first installment so why they’d risk a second attempt, I don’t really know. I would be willing to wager that it has something to do with what has been causing the film’s delay in the first place, money. Winston Groom had been in a legal fight over compensation from the film’s huge success and until that is resolved I wouldn’t expect any progress, thankfully.

The original Forrest Gump movie was a great, Oscar worthy film. So why spit on its grave and order up a sequel? Well, it seems that in Hollywood there exists a driving force to vomit out a follow-on to any blockbuster as quickly as possibly with complete disregard to what made the original so good. The biggest one that comes to mind is Lost World. There is no way it would have ever existed if Jurassic Park had not made so much money. It was a big suck fest for the audience and yet a huge pay day for the studios. The same thing happened with Pirates 2 (and now that series may stretch out to 4 films thanks to all the green it makes), which wasn’t terrible, but was definitely made as another cash grabber.

I imagine we will inevitably see this movie in the theaters and I think that’s a shame. Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong and it’ll either never get made or will lightning will strike twice and produce a winner. Sounds nice, but I doubt it.