John Hughes had a few more tricks up his sleeve, according to actor Anthony Michael Hall, 58.
Hall, who played “the brain” Brian Johnson in The Breakfast Club, revealed that director Hughes, who also wrote and produced the movie, floated the idea of a Breakfast Club sequel in their final phone call before Hughes’ tragic death.
“You know what’s crazy? The last time I spoke to Mr. Hughes, he called me with John Candy on the phone,” Hall said on The Rich Eisen Show. “It was about 1988, and we just hung out on the phone for a couple hours, and he talked about it at that time. It was something that was on his mind, the idea of bringing back The Breakfast Club. Like, those five characters reunited somehow later in their life, and they’re in the workforce, and they’re in their 30s.”
Hughes’ slate of films—including Pretty in Pink, Home Alone, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—redefined the teen movie for a generation of American adolescents. Hughes and Hall were frequent collaborators, working together on hits like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science. Hall isn’t sure if Hughes had begun work on a Breakfast Club sequel or if it was just the beginning of an idea.
“I think that it was something he was playing with,” he said. “I don’t know if he had written it or not, but he just was so prolific.”
The Breakfast Club was a smash success after its 1985 release, making $51.5 million worldwide and launching the careers of its now-iconic stars. The soundtrack reached No. 17 on the Billboard album chart, and its hit single, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds, hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Top 100.
Hughes died of a sudden heart attack at age 59 in 2009. Hall said he was always pitching new ideas, even during production for other movies. He pitched a completely different movie to Hall while they were still shooting The Breakfast Club.
“We were shooting The Breakfast Club, and he came to me in the hallway,” Hall said. “He goes, ‘I just came up with the other 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?’”
That idea became the popular Weird Science, starring now-household names Hall, Robert Downey, Jr., and Bill Paxton.
“He wrote an entire act of Weird Science after we had wrapped [The Breakfast Club] the night before when he went home,” Hall said. “He was just incredibly prolific, man.”
