How much local Beaufort shrimp were used in the filming of Forrest Gump?
That question was answered a little over a week ago when the folks at the Gay Fish Company on St. Helena Island discovered the 30 year old invoices from Paramount Pictures in an old filing cabinet and posted their find on their Facebook page.
The answer? 6,125 lbs of local shrimp.
The shrimp were purchased at Gay’s at a “whopping” price of $2.95 & $3 per pound, which was the going rate for larger orders at the time. (Who wishes that were still the price today?)
The shrimp were necessary to film the scene where Forrest and his First Mate, Lt. Dan, (Hanks & Sinese) bring in a huge haul in their nets and it spills all across the deck of the boat. It was at that moment in the film when the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company found all the success it needed. And, the rest was history.
It appears that Paramount spent a total of $26,940.10 on shrimp and some accessories from Gay’s for that seconds-long scene in the film.
That’s a lot of shrimp.
Everyone knows that Forrest Gump’s beautiful shrimp boat scenes weren’t filmed in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. They were shot on location along Lucy Creek on Lady’s Island. The dock and boat house on the Coosaw Island side of Lucy Creek was the setting for the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.
So much of the movie is Beaufort SC & the sea islands.
When Paramount Pictures swept into town in 1993, everyone was excited that a new movie was filming with Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Robin Wright and a modestly known newer actor named Gary Sinese. Although most of the story is set in Alabama, filming took place mainly in and around Beaufort, as well as in parts of coastal Virginia, North Carolina and in Savannah.
Dozens and dozens of locals were cast as extras in the movie, and location spotters were dispatched all over the Beaufort area to take photographs to determine which local spots were ideal for filming particular scenes of the movie. They must’ve found what they were looking for because, yet again, the rest is history.
And, for Gump fans who are waxing nostalgic and want to see the receipts with their own eyes in person, they’re being proudly displayed in frames at Gay Fish Company’s seafood market at the docks on St. Helena Island, where they’ve been fishing the ocean for 75 years, now.
