Tom Hanks Gave Up His $7 Million Salary for Forrest Gump. He Made $70 Million.

In 1994, Forrest Gump was in trouble. The production had gone over budget, and Paramount Pictures was looking for ways to cut costs. Tom Hanks offered a solution: he would give up his entire $7 million salary.

In exchange, he wanted something the studio considered a reasonable trade: "first dollar" backend points, meaning a percentage of the film's gross revenue from the very first ticket sold, before expenses.

Paramount agreed immediately. They thought they'd just saved $7 million.

The Math

Forrest Gump opened on July 6, 1994, and never stopped earning. It grossed $330 million domestically and $680 million worldwide. It won six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Hanks.

Hanks's backend deal paid him over $70 million. Ten times what his salary would have been.

The Scene He Paid For

The iconic sequence of Forrest running across America almost didn't happen. The studio considered it too expensive and unnecessary. Hanks believed in it so strongly that he funded the sequence out of his own pocket.

It became one of the most memorable scenes in cinema history. And thanks to his backend deal, every dollar that scene helped earn went partially back into Hanks's pocket.

Paramount thought they saved $7 million. They ended up paying $70 million. And the scene they refused to fund became the reason people kept buying tickets.