In 1985, The Breakfast Club brought five teenagers into the same school library for detention and into the hearts of audiences everywhere. The film turned a one-day punishment into one of the most talked-about stories in teen movie history. Nearly 40 years later, producer Andrew Meyer says the reason people still care is simple: the story felt real then, and it still does now.
Meyer recently sat with People to talk about his new book, Walking in the Fast Lane, and touched on why The Breakfast Club hasn’t been forgotten. According to him, the film’s strength lies in its honesty and the way it captures something timeless. He also says he knows what happened next, even though the movie never showed it.
‘The Breakfast Club’ was one of the most famous movies of its time
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The movie, which was made on a budget of just $1 million, earned more than $50 million at the box office. Its impact was bigger than its earnings, though. It became a blueprint for teen movies and has been copied, mentioned, and joked about in pop culture ever since.
Directed by John Hughes, the story focused on five students from different backgrounds stuck in detention. Each teen started out as a label: the athlete, the brain, the criminal, the princess, the outsider, but by the end of the day, they had dropped those roles.
Andrew Meyer believed the movie showed a kind of teen life that’s now gone
Meyer says the world the movie showed doesn’t exist anymore. Back then, school felt like a safe place. The characters worried about parents and peer pressure, not violence or fear. Today’s students face more than just cliques and curfews, and that difference makes the film feel almost like a memory of a gentler time.
He describes the final scene, where the teens leave detention to the sound of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” as more than just a great ending. For him, it showed five people who had finally seen who they were and who they might become.