Tom Hanks believes a meteor shower foretold “Forrest Gump”'s success: 'We just saw something that was otherworldly'

Life is like a box of chocolates... and perhaps like red-orange fireballs streaking across the sky.

Tom Hanks believes the success of Forrest Gump was written in the stars.

Appearing on Wednesday's episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers, the actor recalled the good omen of witnessing his first meteor shower while he was filming the 1994 movie in South Carolina. The moment just might've foreshadowed the film's success, said Hanks.

Related: Tom Hanks' most iconic roles

"We’re down in Beaufort. We’re staying on Fripp Island, very historic kind of place," recalled Hanks. "We had like 10 days before we started shooting this cuckoo movie." Concerns over whether the crew was "sowing the seeds of our own destruction" and whether the film would resonate with audiences were quelled by the cosmos.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

"We happen to be there in the summertime, and it was the Perseids meteor shower," Hanks said. At the time, the actor had "never seen a meteor in my life," he said. "I think Fripp Island here in South Carolina is too far south, and we’d have to be up at 3 o’clock in the morning where the sky is at its darkest, right? So I don't think we’re going to see anything."

But then: "Oh my god!" Hanks yelped. "It looked like the head of a match that you had just struck. It was a ball of red-orange fire and it streaked across the sky and left this trail that lingered and lingered and lingered. And I said, 'You know, if you believe in omens, maybe this movie we’re making is gonna work out.' We just saw something that was otherworldly."

Related: Tom Hanks and Robin Wright age backwards and forwards through time in the trailer for Robert Zemeckis' Here

From director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Eric Roth, Forrest Gump follows the life of Hanks' slow-witted titular character, an Alabama man with an IQ of 75, through various moments of history, including the Vietnam War, and his yearning to reconnect with his childhood love Jenny (played by Robin Wright). The film was a box office success and won six Academy Awards at the 1995 ceremony, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Hanks.

Now, 30 years after the release of the film, Hanks reunites with the crew in the drama film Here, in theaters Nov. 1. Hanks stars opposite Wright in the film directed by Zemeckis, who co-wrote the screenplay with Roth. It tells the story of multiple generations of families who inhabit the same home over the course of a century, with Hanks and Wright once again portraying a couple.

Hanks has kept in contact with Zemeckis and Roth in the years since they worked together on Forrest Gump, he told Meyers. "We get together," said the actor. "We talk all the time. Sometimes we talk about movies, sometimes we talk about dreams and hopes and our fears."

Watch Hanks' chat with Meyers in full above.