Paramount traded one of their scripts with Warner Bros. to acquire Eric Roth's Forrest Gump screenplay
Tom Hanks reprises the iconic Forrest Gump scene – The Graham Norton Show
Exactly 30 years ago, Tom Hanks teamed up with Robert Zemeckis to create a film that would be etched into film history forever – Forrest Gump. Sherry Lansing was at the top of Paramount at the time and the film was the biggest gamble of her tenure at the studio. Interestingly, the rights to the screenplay based on Winston Groom's book were owned by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. had no intention of making a movie out of it because of another movie starring Tom Cruise. Paramount struck a deal with WB to acquire the film rights and went on to make an Oscar-winning film.
In the biography of film executive Sherry Lansing, Leading Lady, she opened up about how she made the biggest gamble of her career with Forrest Gump. Lansing was briefly in charge of Paramount in the 1990s and was tasked with proving his worth in the position. She was reading many scripts when she came across Eric Roth's screenplay based on Winston Groom's book Forrest Gump.
