Tom Hanks made millions from Forrest Gump due to clever clause in his contract
It's one of the defining films of his career, but did you know that Tom Hanks took a massive gamble with his salary for Forrest Gump?
With memorable lines such as 'I just felt like running' and 'Life is like a box of chocolates', Hanks' portrayal of the titular character won over the hearts of viewers around the world, ultimately landing him an Oscar in 1995 for 'Best Actor'.
Forrest, and his decision to go running for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours, became one of the most recognisable characters of the 69-year-old's career, even making a cameo in one of his son's music videos.
Forrest Gump would also make Hanks a hell of a lot of money, all thanks to a clever contract decision.
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Instead of taking a traditional salary, Hanks opted to forego this in favour of performance-based pay, meaning the amount of money he took home depended on how well the film did.
Which sounds like a massive gamble at the time, but one which ultimately paid off massively as Forrest Gump was a major success, grossing $678 million worldwide at the box office.
Adjusted for inflation, this equates to roughly $1.5 billion in 2026.
And this isn't even his most successful movie.
Although Hanks has never officially disclosed the amount of money he made from the film, estimates put his earnings somewhere within the region of $40 to $70 million (£30 million to £53 million).
Not a bad payday, considering that the salary he was offered is estimated to be around $7 million.
Hanks' decision to take a risk on his salary wasn't the only gamble he made with Forrest Gump; the actor and director Robert Zemeckis invested their own cash to shoot certain scenes of the film after Paramount Pictures refused to fund them.
This included some of the iconic backgrounds seen as Forrest runs across America, including Marshall Point Lighthouse in Maine, Monument Valley in Utah, and Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina.
Speaking about the decision to fund the scenes during an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Toy Story actor said: This is movie economics 101. I said, 'What do you want to do, Bob?' He said, 'I think we should pay for this sequence ourselves. Let's knock money out of salary and we will pay for it ourselves'.
"It was a lot of money. So we split it right down the middle. We'll take it out of our salary. And we said, 'We will make them give it back to us on the back end'."
Brenna Cooper