John Hughes had an incredible knack for nailing what it felt like to be a teenager in the 1980s, and perhaps the pinnacle of his power came with 1985’s The Breakfast Club. The classic comedy, which you can watch with a Netflix subscription, helped define Generation X. It’s a movie that is endlessly quotable, and just about everyone in Gen X sees at least a part of themselves in the characters in it. I’m certainly no exception. I say “Excuse, will milk be made available?” all the time, for example.
Recently, one of the stars of the film, Anthony Michael Hall, revealed that Hughes had a sequel to the movie in mind, and I have to say, I wish we’d seen it happen.
A Sequel All Five As Grown-Ups
Recently, Hall, who played “the brain,” Brian, in The Breakfast Club, appeared on the Rich Eisen Show and talked about a conversation he had with Hughes a few years after the movie came out. Of the conversation, Hall said (via Deadline):
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.
Yeah. I really love this idea, and I don’t always love the idea of sequels like this. Sometimes it's best to let successful dogs lie. However, as I head into middle age (a solid GenXer), I of course have a very different outlook on life than I did when I was 17, like the characters in the movie did. I would love to see how their lives turned out, because things are usually so different than you expect.
What Would Have Become Of Them?
Would Claire (Molly Ringwald) and Bender (Judd Nelson) still be together? How about Andrew (Emilio Estevez) and Allison (Ally Sheedy)? Did either romance even make it until Monday morning after their Saturday session, or did everyone go back to their previous spots in the high school hierarchy? The movie starts with a quote from David Bowie’s “Changes” that claims kids are smarter than adults think they are, but I don’t know. I was pretty stupid at that age. All kids are, honestly.
This sequel would be a further chance to explore just how meaningful the new friendships that formed on that Saturday in March, 1984. I would like to believe that they all stayed friends, and that the bonds held, but let’s be real, this is high school; things change by the hour at that age.
Still, I’ve been to plenty of class reunions since I graduated from high school, and I love seeing how people have grown and evolved (or not). I genuinely love seeing old friends, some of whom I might not have spoken to in years, and learning what they are up to and who they are as adults. In a way, Brian, Bender, Andrew, Allison, and Claire are my friends, too. I certainly watched them enough to feel a bond with them; I would have loved to have seen them at their 15th or 20th class reunion.
Of course, there is no way to know if the idea would have worked on screen, but a big part of me wishes we would’ve gotten the chance to see if, as Andrew asks, they are “just like their parents.”
