As "Forrest Gump" taught us, with life and boxes of chocolates, "you never know what you're gonna get." But screenwriter Eric Roth, who picked up an Oscar for the 1994 film starring Tom Hanks, is revealing what was planned for the sequel and why it was never made.

Roth, 73, told Yahoo Entertainment the follow-up film wouldn't have followed "Forrest Gump" author Winston Groom's second novel "Gump & Co." that closely. Roth turned in a script in 2001.

“Literally, I turned it in the day before 9/11,” said the writer, who also co-wrote last year's remake of "A Star Is Born," as well as "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "The Horse Whisperer."

He recalled, "Tom and I and (director Robert Zemeckis) got together on 9/11 to sort of commiserate about how life was in America and how tragic it was. And we looked at each other and said, ‘This movie has no meaning anymore, in that sense.' "

Roth said the film would have begun with the revelation that Forrest Junior (Haley Joel Osment) had AIDS, the same disease that killed his mother Jenny Curran, played by Robin Wright.

“People wouldn’t go to class with (Forrest Jr.) in Florida," said Roth. "We had a funny sequence where they were (desegregation) busing in Florida at the same time, so people were angry about either the busing or (their) kids having to go to school with the kid who had AIDS. So there was a big conflict.”

Forrest, who in the original film met presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson and served as inspiration for Elvis Presley and John Lennon, was to also pop up for notable moments of the 1990s in the next movie.

“I had (Forrest) in the back of (O.J. Simpson's) Bronco,” Roth told Yahoo, referencing the infamous 1994 car chase. “He would look up occasionally, but they didn’t see him in the rearview mirror, and then he’d pop down.

“I had him as a ballroom dancer who was really good, he could do the (rotation) ballroom dancing. And then eventually, just as sort of a charity kind of thing, he danced with Princess Diana,” he added. (She died in 1997.)

Roth also planned to reference the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in the sequel. The deadliest terrorist attack in America until 9/11, it killed 168 people, including 19 children.

He explained, “(Forrest) meets on a bus a Native American woman and finds his calling as a bingo caller on a reservation. And the big event in that, which you could see was diminished only in tragedy, I guess, because it’s the same tragedy, but every day he’d go wait for his Native American partner. She taught nursery school at a government building in Oklahoma City. And he was sitting on the bench waiting for her to have lunch and all of a sudden the building behind him blows up. … So when 9/11 occurred … everything felt meaningless.”

For the film's 20th anniversary in 2014, Roth reflected on the proposed script to USA TODAY calling it "quite beautiful, really."

Answering where in history he'd bring Forrest if a new movie were made today, star Hanks saw a Facebook friend in his future.

"All the political figures would be too obvious, so Forrest would have chatted up both Mark Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins about how it would be nice if you had a book that would show a person's face and make a friend," Hanks said.

"Forrest would have been in New Orleans for (2005 hurricane) Katrina where his own common sense would have saved him and others," Hanks added. "Momma would have told him to go high when the waters rise. Bubba would have taught him about boats and Lt. Dan would come and find him."

Contributing: Bryan Alexander

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