What Molly Ringwald Has Said About A Breakfast Club Reboot: 'It Doesn't Represent Our World Today'

For years, it's been a common joke online that a modern remake of director John Hughes' seminal 1985 teen classic "The Breakfast Club" simply can't be done, given just how much has changed since the movie was initially made. After all, why would the five teenagers sentenced to Saturday detention bother to open up to one another and learn just how similar they actually are when they could simply pass the time scrolling on their phones? Molly Ringwald, who played the black honey lipstick-wearing "princess" Claire Standish, seems to agree that a remake of "The Breakfast Club" wouldn't really work in this day and age. However, surprisingly, her hang-ups have little to do with the technology of it all.

In April 2025, Ringwald took part in a "Breakfast Club" 40th anniversary reunion panel alongside former castmates Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estèvez, and Anthony Michael Hall, during which the former Brat Pack member pointed out that the lack of diversity in "The Breakfast Club" badly dated the film. The actor also argued that an original, more modern-minded movie inspired by it would be preferable to a straight remake. "I personally don't believe in remaking that movie, because I think this movie is very much of its time," Ringwald proclaimed at the time (via Entertainment Weekly).

"It resonates with people today," she added. "I believe in making movies that are inspired by other movies but build on it and represent what's going on today. This is very, you know, it's very white, this movie. You don't see a lot of different ethnicities. We don't talk about gender. None of that. And I feel like that really doesn't represent our world today."

Regardless of whether or not a remake of "The Breakfast Club" is a good idea, at the time of writing, no such project appears to be actively in the works. Molly Ringwald and her co-stars getting the band back together for a "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" style legacy sequel also seems unlikely at this stage. However, that's not to say that a potential follow-up to the 1985 original hasn't been considered over the years. In fact, according to Anthony Michael Hall, director John Hughes was actually kicking around a sequel idea as far back as 1987. "It would have been all of us in our middle-age. His idea was to pick up with them in their twenties or thirties. That [idea] was on his mind, but that was the last conversation I had with him," the actor dished to The Independent in October 2021. 

Indeed, shortly after that discussion about a follow-up took place, Hall had a very public falling out with Hughes, who then passed away in 2009, before anything could come to fruition. In 2015, Ringwald similarly confirmed to the Daily Beast that she had heard a script for a "Breakfast Club" sequel was kicking around, though nothing has come of it since. In fact, thus far, Hughes' beloved '80s teen classics have proven to be weirdly untouchable as far as modern Hollywood is concerned. A "Weird Science" remake has been in development hell since 2013, and a "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" spinoff was announced in 2022, only to be quietly scrapped a few years later. At the time of writing, it remains to be seen if Selena Gomez's planned small-screen reimagining of "Sixteen Candles," which was also announced in 2022, will see the light of day.