Ripley's Believe It or Not Acquires Forrest Gump's Box of Chocolates for $25,000

As movie memorabilia goes, there are some items that are simply more iconic than others — and among those iconic items happens to be the box of chocolates used by the titular character in Forrest Gump. Forrest, played by Tom Hanks, was frequently seen in the film as he narrated his life's story and shared a piece of folksy wisdom that has itself has become iconic: "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get". Now, however, fans of the film at least know where the prop will be. On Monday, Ripley's Believe It or Not! announced that they are now the owner of the prop chocolates used by Hanks in the film, having paid $25,000 for it.

According to a press release, the box — which is signed by Hanks himself — is filled not with chocolates, but with sand. The box was filled with sand to allow Hanks to keep it on his lap during filming and instead of weighing the 23-ounces listed on the Russell Stover Candies gift box, it actually weighs more than four pounds due to the sand.

Forrest Gump's chocolates aren't the only pop-culture memorabilia items recently acquired by Ripley's Believe It or Not!. They also recently acquired Darth Maul's double-sided Lightsaber from Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Beatles manager Brian Epstein's personal, hand-notated address book complete with addresses and phone numbers for not just the Beatles but artists such as Mick Jagger, and Prince's purple coat worn during the artist's "Purple Rain stage performances.

Will there be a sequel to Forrest Gump?

Released in 1994, Forrest Gump was a huge hit when it was released and was based on author Winston Groom's novel of the same name. Groom wrote a sequel to the novel, Gump and Co., which was published in 1995, but Hanks previously told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that discussion of a sequel film didn't last very long at all.

"I will say that, with a long time in between, we did take a stab at talking about another Forrest Gump that lasted all of 40 minutes," Hanks said. "And then we never… we said, 'Guys, come on.'"

It was previously reported that Forrest Gump producers Steve Tisch and Wendy Finerman had revived the sequel from development hell in the late 2000s, with Gary Sinise poised to reprise his role as Lieutenant Dan. In 2007, Groom refuted rumors of a "feud" with studio Paramount Pictures, saying in a statement to CinemaBlend that an issue of payment never "caused any delay in making a movie of Gump & Company, a sequel to Forrest Gump."