Anthony Michael Hall says John Hughes once considered bringing the five central characters from The Breakfast Club back together as adults navigating careers and life beyond high school.
Hall revealed the idea while discussing his decades-long connection to Hughes during an August 5th appearance on The Rich Eisen Show.
The actor said Hughes raised the possibility during what Hall remembers as their final conversation, a lengthy phone call around 1988 that also included John Candy.
Hughes apparently envisioned Brian Johnson, Claire Standish, Andrew Clark, John Bender and Allison Reynolds reuniting in their 30s, although Hall does not know whether the filmmaker ever developed the idea into a screenplay.
Hughes Imagined the Five Characters in Their 30s
Hall said Hughes called him around 1988 with Candy also on the line, and the three spent several hours talking. “It was something that was on his mind,” Hall said of a possible Breakfast Club continuation, according to PEOPLE.
The idea involved the original five characters reconnecting later in life, after they had entered the workforce and reached their 30s. Hall did not explain what circumstances would have reunited Brian, Claire, Andrew, Bender and Allison after their Saturday detention at Shermer High School.
Hall was careful not to describe the idea as a completed sequel that was abandoned before production. “I don’t know if he had written it or not,” he said. Hall characterized the concept as something Hughes had been considering. No completed screenplay, studio announcement or production plan for that version of a sequel has publicly surfaced.
Hughes Was Already Planning ‘Weird Science’ During ‘The Breakfast Club’
Hall also used another story from their collaboration to illustrate how quickly Hughes generated new projects. While filming The Breakfast Club in 1984, Hughes approached Hall approximately two weeks into production and told him he had come up with another movie.
The concept involved two teenagers using a computer to create a woman. That idea became Weird Science, which Hughes wrote and directed with Hall starring alongside Ilan Mitchell-Smith and Kelly LeBrock. According to Entertainment Weekly, Hall recalled Hughes writing an entire act of Weird Science after the cast had wrapped work the previous night.
Hall cited the experience as an example of Hughes’ unusually prolific creative process and why he believes a Breakfast Club follow-up could genuinely have been on the filmmaker’s mind even if no script was completed.
All Five Stars Finally Reunited 40 Years Later
Hall eventually reunited with Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez at Chicago’s C2E2 convention on April 12th, 2025. The appearance marked the first time all five principal cast members had participated in a reunion together since the movie’s release 40 years earlier.
During the panel, the actors offered their own ideas about what might have happened to their characters. Nelson joked that Bender could have become the school principal, while Sheedy imagined Allison becoming a writer or professor. Ringwald suggested Claire might have taken a less conventional path through adulthood.
The cast said another film was not foreseeable without Hughes, and Hall explained that the sequel idea had been something the filmmaker once “conjured and thought about.” Hughes died of a heart attack on August 6th, 2009, at age 59.