50 Fun Facts About The Breakfast Club

Who wrote, produced and directed The Breakfast Club?

He wrote the script in 1982, before Sixteen Candles, and had to persuade sceptical investors that a one-room shoot on a $1 million budget was low-risk.

On what day of the week does the film's detention take place?

The on-screen date is March 24, 1984, four days before principal photography began in real life.

What is the fictional Illinois suburb where the detention takes place, seen across Hughes's films?

Shermer, Illinois is Hughes's fictional stand-in for the Chicago suburbs and turns up across his films.

What is the vice principal's name?

Paul Gleason later parodied the role in Not Another Teen Movie and in an A-Teens music video.

How long, at minimum, is the essay Vernon assigns the students?

Brian ends up writing it on everyone's behalf, signing off 'Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club'.

Which character is the 'brain' in the group?

Anthony Michael Hall was the first actor cast, and his real mother and sister play his character's family.

Which actress plays Claire Standish, the 'princess'?

She was first offered Allison and was 'really upset', because she wanted Claire, who was called Cathy in the first draft.

Who plays the rebellious John Bender?

He stayed in character between takes and harassed Ringwald so persistently that the other actors had to talk Hughes out of firing him.

Which actor was originally cast as Bender before being moved to the role of Andrew Clark?

He was recast because Hughes could not find anyone else to play the wrestler.

Which actress was considered for Allison Reynolds before Ally Sheedy was cast?

Foster, Wright, Lane and Dern all auditioned for Claire instead.

Which actor was originally cast as the janitor, then dropped for playing him as an over-the-top Russian?

John Kapelos took over as Carl, and later sat in the audience for the 2005 MTV Movie Awards reunion.

What was the film's working title before Hughes borrowed a friend's school nickname for detention?

A friend from another school had a detention class actually called 'The Breakfast Club', and Hughes took it.

The film was shot entirely at a closed-down high school in which Illinois town?

Maine North High School had closed in 1981; the real library was too small, so a bigger copy was built in the gym.

Which other 1986 Hughes film used the same school for interior scenes?

Hughes shot the two films concurrently to save money, and outtakes of each show the other film's crew at work.

Roughly what was the film's production budget?

It went on to gross $51.5 million worldwide, debuting at number three behind Beverly Hills Cop and Witness.

How many additional weekends of detention does Vernon hand Bender during the day?

Bender racks them up by talking back; later, locked in a closet, he freezes when Vernon dares him to throw a punch.

Why is Claire in detention?

Her bickering parents use her against each other, which is why she cannot say no to a day at the mall.

What did Bender do to earn his detention?

He also reveals the cigar burns his father gave him, the film's rawest moment.

Andrew is in detention for taping a fellow student's buttocks together. Which sport does he compete in?

He did it to impress his teammates and a father who pushes him relentlessly to win.

Brian was sent to detention because of an incident involving what?

He had brought it to school intending to kill himself after failing shop class; it went off in his locker.

Which class did Brian get an F in, the grade that pushed him to despair?

He failed on an elephant lamp that would not light, a detail fans quote to this day.

Why does Allison say she came to detention?

She is compulsively dishonest and hoards stolen odds and ends in case she ever runs away from home.

Where do the students sneak off to after lunch?

They go to fetch his marijuana stash; when Vernon reappears, Bender gets himself caught so the others can slip back.

How does Bender get back into the library after being locked in a storage closet?

He falls through into the library and the others hide him from Vernon.

Which two characters bond over their fear of being virgins?

Meanwhile Andrew and Allison bond over their difficult parents.

What does Allison rip off Andrew's letterman jacket to keep as they part?

It follows the makeover Claire gives her, the moment Andrew starts to look at her differently.

What does Claire give Bender at the end of the film?

He puts it on, then walks home across the football field and punches the air.

When the vice principal complains that students have grown arrogant, what does the janitor Carl suggest?

Vernon complains the kids have grown arrogant; Carl replies that he is the one who cares too much what they think of him.

How does the film end, in its most iconic shot?

Judd Nelson tried several other gestures for the ending before landing on the fist pump.

Which actor was too embarrassed to do the scripted solo dance, so the others joined in?

Ringwald was embarrassed about dancing solo, so Hughes let everyone join in.

Which famous photographer shot the film's huddled-cast poster?

That 'family shot' changed how teen films were marketed and was spoofed on the poster for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

Which band performs 'Don't You (Forget About Me)', the song that opens and closes the film?

They initially refused because they only wanted to record their own material; singer Jim Kerr said they 'couldn't give a toss about teenage American schoolkids'.

Who wrote 'Don't You (Forget About Me)'?

Forsey produced the soundtrack; the pair were inspired by the scene where an introvert and a bully bond when nobody is watching.

Which Roxy Music singer turned the song down because he was busy with his album Boys and Girls?

Billy Idol declined too, and the label's suggestion of Corey Hart was rejected by Forsey.

Which Pretenders singer, then married to Jim Kerr, urged him to record the song?

Kerr added the 'hey hey hey' intro and 'la la la' outro as placeholders and Forsey insisted on keeping them.

What position did 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' reach on the US Billboard Hot 100?

It only made No. 7 in the band's home UK charts, but topped both the US and Canada.

What tune are the students whistling when Vernon walks into the library?

It is the one piece of music from the film not on the soundtrack album, which critic Robert Christgau graded D-minus.

The film's five young stars were lumped into which nickname by a 1985 New York magazine cover story?

David Blum coined it after a night watching Estevez, Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson being mobbed at the Hard Rock Cafe.

In which year was The Breakfast Club added to the US National Film Registry?

A year earlier it had been remastered and re-screened in 430 cinemas for its 30th anniversary.

How long was the first print of the film, according to its production history?

Ally Sheedy has said a director's cut exists, but Hughes's widow has never revealed where it is.

Which 2001 parody film saw Paul Gleason reprise his role as Vernon?

He also played the vice principal again in an A-Teens music video for 'Dancing Queen'.

When did all five principal actors finally reunite in person for the first time in forty years?

At the 2005 MTV reunion Estevez had other commitments and Nelson left early, so Hall joked they were 'in Africa with Dave Chappelle'.

Hughes planned a sequel that was never made. What was its premise?

They would have been the polar opposites of who they were in the first film; Hughes died in 2009 without making it.

On what date in 1984 does the Saturday detention in The Breakfast Club take place?

The five students report to Shermer High School for an all-day detention; filming itself ran from March to May 1984.

Which actor was the first to be cast in The Breakfast Club?

His real-life mother and sister played Brian's mother and sister in the film.

Why did the crew build a replica of the school's reading room in the gymnasium?

Maine North High School in Des Plaines had closed in May 1981; the cast rehearsed for three weeks and shot the film in sequence.

Roughly how much did The Breakfast Club gross worldwide on its tiny budget?

Made for about $1 million, it was a box office success and later placed on The New York Times' Best 1000 Movies Ever list.

Which behaviour by Judd Nelson nearly got him fired by John Hughes during filming?

The other actors had to convince Hughes not to fire him.

Which two films were ahead of The Breakfast Club when it opened at No. 3 in February 1985?

Empire later ranked the film No. 38 on its 2014 greatest-movies list, and Entertainment Weekly named it the best high school movie ever.

What did five of the principal cast members receive at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards?

Sheedy, Ringwald and Hall appeared on stage with Kapelos in the audience, and Paul Gleason presented the award.