When this film became wildly successful, talk of a sequel naturally arose. However, at the time, Tom Hanks adamantly refused to work in any sequel (and making the sequel with another actor was not a consideration).
The condition that Jenny was being treated for at the end of the movie was probably HIV. She says in the movie that the doctors do not know what the virus is and that they can do nothing about it. She mentions that she is being treated in Atlanta; the Centers for DIsease Control in Atlanta did some of the first US research on the epidemiology and treatment of HIV/AIDS; and the time that she died was the time the virus was first being discovered. Based on what we see of her life, she is in several of the categories that were at the highest risk for contracting HIV, including IV drug users and people who have unprotected sex with many partners.
Tom Hanks’ younger brother Jim Hanks doubled for him in many of his numerous running sequences.
The running scene was inspired by an actual event. In 1982, Louis Michael Figueroa, aged 16, ran from New Jersey to San Francisco for the American Cancer Society, unknowingly inspiring a line for Forrest Gump’s famous run on the silver screen. “I just put one foot in front of the other,” it goes. “When I get tired I sleep. When I get hungry I eat. When I have to go to the bathroom, I go.”
All of the boat scenes, including the hurricane scene, were shot on location in the waters off the coast of South Carolina. A jet engine was used to generate the hurricane winds. The still/news reel shots of the trawlers on land are news shots of the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina 1989.
Lieutenant Dan tells Forrest that the day Forrest works on a shrimp boat is the day he’d be an astronaut. This is a reference to the book, where Forrest actually becomes an astronaut. The following year, Gary Sinise and Tom Hanks appeared together as astronauts in Apollo 13. Gary Sinise is also the commander/narrator of the ride “Mission: Space in Epcot” in Walt Disney World, and also starred as an astronaut in Mission to Mars.
Almost all of John Lennon’s dialogue is from his song “Imagine” (“No possessions,” “No religion too,” “It’s easy if you try”).
Robert Zemeckis decided to leave out several planned effects shots. One shot in particular involved Forrest running into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his supporters. Forrest distracts several dogs trying to attack King and his supporters by playing fetch with them and rendering them harmless to King and himself as well as his supporters.
When Forrest gets up to talk at the Vietnam rally in Washington, the microphone plug is pulled and you cannot hear him. According to Tom Hanks, he says, “Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don’t go home at all. That’s a bad thing. That’s all I have to say about that.”
Gary Sinise’s lower legs were wrapped in a special blue fabric that allowed them to be digitally removed later.
