John Hughes Had a Wild Plan for ‘The Breakfast Club’ Sequel

Fans of The Breakfast Club have spent decades wondering what happened to Brian, Bender, Claire, Andrew and Allison after their famous Saturday detention. Now, Anthony Michael Hall has revealed that director John Hughes once had an idea that could have answered that question.

Speaking recently on The Rich Eisen Show, Hall said Hughes was interested in bringing the original group back together years after the events of the 1985 movie. Instead of picking up immediately after detention, the story would have followed the five characters as adults.

“It was something that was on his mind, the idea of bringing back the ‘Breakfast Club,’” Hall said. “Like, those five characters reunited somehow later in their life and they’re in the workforce and they’re in their 30s.”

That idea would have taken the characters far beyond the high school setting that made the original movie such a hit. The first film centered on five students from very different social groups who were forced to spend a Saturday in detention together. Over the course of the day, they slowly opened up to each other and discovered they had more in common than they expected.

Hall played Brian Johnson, the smart and nervous student who was struggling under pressure to succeed. He starred alongside Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy.

According to Hall, Hughes was already thinking about what could come next just a few years after the movie was released. Hall said his final conversation with Hughes took place in 1988, when the director called him while actor John Candy was also on the phone.

“He called me with John Candy on the phone, and it was about 1988, and we just hung out on the phone for a couple hours, and he talked about [the sequel] at that time,” Hall recalled.

However, Hall isn’t sure how far Hughes actually took the idea. “So I think that it was something he was playing with. I don’t know if he had written it or not,” he said.

Hughes died in 2009, so the potential sequel never moved forward. Still, the idea offers an interesting look at how the filmmaker viewed his most famous characters. Rather than simply returning them to high school for another adventure, Hughes appears to have been interested in seeing how their lives might have changed as they entered adulthood.

The idea also fits with Hall’s long working relationship with Hughes. The actor appeared in several of the director’s best-known movies, including Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science.

Hall even recalled that Hughes came up with the idea for Weird Science while The Breakfast Club was still being filmed. “He goes, ‘I just came up with another idea for our next film.’ He goes, ‘It’s going to be you and this other kid. You’re going to create a girl in the computer.’ I’m like, ‘What?’”

The Breakfast Club never got its adult reunion, but Hall’s story suggests Hughes was thinking about one long before fans could imagine it.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!