Sad news: on a day that has already seen the ignominious shitcanning of Hollywood's best "cyborg dinosaurs rescue kidnapped children" franchise, word has emerged that screenwriter Eric Roth has quietly buried his unnecessary script for Forrest Gump 2 out by the old oak tree. While promoting The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Roth told Slashfilm that the sequel just didn't seem the same after 9/11 happened (what, those scenes of a digital Tom Hanks outrunning smoke and debris in Manhattan felt too soon?). The news reminded us that several years ago, we attended a talk where Roth revealed the Gump sequel's surprise twist, which he told us not to tell. Guess it doesn't matter now! Here's your before-the-jump SPOILER ALERT...

When Roth said the sequel would pick up two minutes after the original, just as Gump has dropped his son (Haley Joel Osment) off at the bus stop, one audience member asked how Roth planned to address Osment's leap in age. "Actually, I kill him off in the first ten pages," Roth blithely replied after a conspiratorial vow of secrecy. Cold! That school bus didn't look like a 1995 Saturn...