Gabrielle Russon
It was probably the most expensive box of chocolates you would never want to eat. Under the lid of the white box of Russell Stover’s assorted candies was sand and rocks.
This was the Hollywood magic that helped Tom Hanks hold down the weighted box on his lap so it wouldn’t fly off as he uttered that famous line, “Life is like a box of chocolates,” in the classic “Forrest Gump.”
Now, that box — valued at $67,500 — is the latest exhibit at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not tourist attraction in Orlando.
“The visual hasn’t been in your brain for 30 years, but you see it and you go, ‘Yeah, that’s the box.’ That shows how some of those iconic movies hold a place in our hearts and our heads,” said John Corcoran, the exhibits director at the company that prides itself in displaying weird and interesting artifacts.
The Ripley’s Movie Magic exhibit also features a lightsaber used by Luke Skywalker from “The Empire Strikes Back” and a plaster mask of Robin Williams’ face that served as the base to create other prosthetics to transform him into “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
The exhibit is open at Ripley’s at 8201 International Dr. location and is expected to run at least through the end of the year.
Corcoran’s job of acquiring collectibles and props has gotten harder. It’s a big business these days, with Ripley’s competition including Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe, along with wealthy private collectors, all looking to make acquisitions.
In the past, “movie props would sit in a movie warehouse, prop shop forever, and no one was really interested in them,” Corcoran said. “But now it’s this big industry where things go up for auction and people are buying it just because they see it as, like, a safe harbor asset. There’s so many collectors out there for the smaller items. So it used to be a treasure hunt. … In 20 years, (the prices) have gone up twentyfold.
“Things become more iconic over time and it increases the perceived value of them, but at the end of the day, all these are just perceived values, right? Will someone else pay you for it? Is it really worth that?”
Corcoran declined to say how much Ripley’s spent when it acquired the latest Hollywood collection at auction. But the lightsaber base is valued at more than $1 million and the “Mrs. Doubtfire” mask that instantly evokes nostalgia of Williams, who died in 2014, is valued at $10,000.
The good news is that when Ripley’s wins at auctions, the items go on display to the public.
Winning at auction “adds a little more fuel for the fire,” Corcoran said. “OK, where can we put this? What can we do with it? How can we make it super cool where people are going to be excited to see this? … Ultimately, that’s what we’re trying to do is put some smiles on faces.”
