Hit Movies at Bargain-Bin Prices

When writer-director John Hughes first showed the producers the final cut of the movie, they were disappointed and didn't think it would be a hit. How bitterly wrong they were…

To finance The Breakfast Club, Hughes turned to Channel Productions, a production company founded by Ned Tannen, who had already produced such hits as National Lampoon's Animal House and George Lucas's American Graffiti. Being a National Lampoon writer, this seems like a logical choice for Hughes—also, Tannen was producing Hughes's own Sixteen Candles, so they already had a working relationship. At a certain point, Universal Studios jumped in and also helped produce The Breakfast Club.

Since Hughes was only asking for a million bucks (a pittance in the eyes of movie producers) Channel and Universal basically let him do what he wanted. Despite their skepticism about the final product, they were richly rewarded when the movie raked in over fifty million bucks internationally—a massive return for that small of a budget.

Like with a lot of classic movies, there were casting issues with The Breakfast Club that might've created a totally different kind of movie, if things had gone another way. Molly Ringwald was originally cast as Allison Reynolds, but wanted to play Claire Standish. So Hughes switched her, and let Ally Sheedy play the odd introvert character. Likewise, Emilio Estevez originally auditioned for the John Bender role, but ended up playing the athlete, Andrew Clark. Since Judd Nelson is so identified with Bender's part, it's weird to imagine what might've happened.