AHC: Make Forrest Gump a Critical and Financial Flop

[spiderduck1997]

Forrest Gump was released in 1994 and was a big box office hit and critical success and won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor(Tom Hanks), and Best Director(Robert Zemeckis).
What would have to happen in order to make Forrest Gump both a critical and financial disaster? Would having someone other than Hanks(Chevy Chase, for example, was considered for the role) play Gump be the nail in the coffin? Would making the film more similar to the book(I've never read the book, but I have heard that it's inferior to the film, ironically) do the trick? If Forrest Gump had been a financial and critical flop, what movie would have been nominated in its place? What movie would have won Best Picture?

 

[JamesBond88]

Forrest Gump was released in 1994 and was a big box office hit and critical success and won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor(Tom Hanks), and Best Director(Robert Zemeckis).
What would have to happen in order to make Forrest Gump both a critical and financial disaster? Would having someone other than Hanks(Chevy Chase, for example, was considered for the role) play Gump be the nail in the coffin? Would making the film more similar to the book(I've never read the book, but I have heard that it's inferior to the film, ironically) do the trick? If Forrest Gump had been a financial and critical flop, what movie would have been nominated in its place? What movie would have won Best Picture?

Changing the lead actor would probably be enough, although I could actually see Chase managing it if he has a serious tone as opposed to too light hearted. He'd never be casted, but Jim Carrey could do a poor enough job in the role that it might work.

 

[Orcbuster]

I mean this was already answered ten years ago.

 

[m0585]

The author of "Forrest Gump" envisioned John Goodman playing the main role. t that John Goodman isn't a great actor, but maybe he's not as well received as Hanks. Not sure, however, if this would be enough to make the film a flop.

 

[Alternator]

Best Picture goes to Shawshank Redemption, no questions. Pulp Fiction would be the only competition, and isn't going to win.

The easiest way to ruin the movie is probably changing the director to somebody who'd decide he wanted more of a comedy; the movie works because Forrest is played seriously. Changing the genre while still being a 'serious' comedy would be cringe-worthy; the director would be shouting "LAUGH AT THE RETARD!"

 

[gatordad699]

Read the book way before the movie. Just have the movie follow the book. The book is fairly non-pc to people with disabilities. He was supposed to be 6’6” and around 230 lbs. In the book he is a math savant and a machine in the bedroom. IMHO the movie is a nice story of his adventures and pursuit of his true love Jenny. The book is mainly his adventures.

 

[Unknown]

This is the second time Steven Spielberg managed to make a film adaptation that was better than the book (the first one was Jaws; he co-directed Forrest Gump, IIRC)…

Yeah, I can't see anyone but Tom Hanks in the role if you want Forrest to be taken seriously; that's why it works...

 

[spiderduck1997]

Best Picture goes to Shawshank Redemption, no questions. Pulp Fiction would be the only competition, and isn't going to win.

The easiest way to ruin the movie is probably changing the director to somebody who'd decide he wanted more of a comedy; the movie works because Forrest is played seriously. Changing the genre while still being a 'serious' comedy would be cringe-worthy; the director would be shouting "LAUGH AT THE RETARD!"

I don't know about that. The Shawshank Redemption bombed at the box office, and Pulp Fiction was a huge box office hit. I think Pulp Fiction would have been the favorite to win going in. With Forrest Gump being a critical and financial flop, do you think Frank Darabont(Director of Shawshank) would have received a Best Director Nomination? Also, who do you think Best Actor would have gone too?

 

[spiderduck1997]

Changing the lead actor would probably be enough, although I could actually see Chase managing it if he has a serious tone as opposed to too light hearted. He'd never be casted, but Jim Carrey could do a poor enough job in the role that it might work.

Other choices considered were Bill Murray and Sean Penn. How do you think they would have done in the role?

 

[Kevin Renner]

Tim Robbins mght of worked. Sean Penn, no way. Murray, at that point I can't see it. Forrest Gump requires a certain suspension of disbelief. But not enough to believe Murray. As to to the films of that year, the one I could watch any time is Shawshank

 

[unclepatrick]

Would making the film more similar to the book(I've never read the book, but I have heard that it's inferior to the film, ironically) do the trick?

The book is a very different tone then the movie. The movie is mostly a comedy with some serious undertones. The Book is more balance between the comedy and the serious elements.
Unlike the Movie, Gump grows and changes in the book. He learns things and reacts differently because of what he learns. He is often sad in the book since he knows that other are smarter then he is.

I like the book better then the movie. I did however read the book before I saw the movie.

 

[unclepatrick]

Best Picture goes to Shawshank Redemption, no questions. Pulp Fiction would be the only competition, and isn't going to win.

The easiest way to ruin the movie is probably changing the director to somebody who'd decide he wanted more of a comedy; the movie works because Forrest is played seriously. Changing the genre while still being a 'serious' comedy would be cringe-worthy; the director would be shouting "LAUGH AT THE RETARD!"

The first director approached for Forest Gump was Terry Gilliam. When he turned it down, the studio approached Barry Sonnenfeld.
Either of those would have treated the material differently enough that it would have been a different film.

 

[Sam R.]

The problem is the film plays into popular and intelligentsia myths in the United States. Changing both the popular and intellectual composition of the United States might be difficult. But there is at least one group in the US which had a scientific conception of the reconfiguration of the relationship of the intellectuals and people; one group which had an interest in film; one group with the revolutionary science of Marxism as developed in Mao Zedong thought. The MIM. ( https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/movies/review.php?f=long/dune.txt ).

So had rad fem queer black lib maoists hegemonised film criticism and reception maybe the saccharine, masturbatorial and cloying aspects of the film would have achieved prominence amongst reviewers and the film going public in the US. Elsewhere people didn’t need to deflate their own nationalism to receive the film that way.

 

[FieldMarshal]

Changing the lead actor would probably be enough, although I could actually see Chase managing it if he has a serious tone as opposed to too light hearted. He'd never be casted, but Jim Carrey could do a poor enough job in the role that it might work.

While Jim Carrey has gone off the deep end as of late he can definitely do serious when he wants

 

[Orcbuster]

People seem to forget eternal sunshine of a spotless mind