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There's a 4-Hour Version of 'The Breakfast Club' Out There
The cast has seen it, but will it ever be made public?
Apr 17, 2025
John Hughes had a special talent for understanding kids, characters, and knowing what would resonate with audiences. His 80s coming-of-age movies have helped multiple generations put their feelings into words and deal with those raging hormones and unfair terms of the time.
In my humble opinion, the best one is The Breakfast Club, a movie about different high schoolers coming together for detention on a Saturday morning.
The movie has withstood the test of time and resonated with kids over many generations.
Recently, the cast of the movie reunited at the Don’t You Forget About Me: The Breakfast Club 40th Anniversary Reunion panel at C2E2 2025.
Emilio Estevez (Andrew Clark), Molly Ringwald (Claire Standish), Ally Sheedy (Allison Reynolds), Judd Nelson (John Bender), and Michael Anthony Hall (Brian Johnson) came together to prove that even after all these years, their bond remains strong.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
During that panel, they told stories, with one of the most interesting being that the original cut of the movie was four hours long.
“It was a little bit daunting for our editor Dede Allen,” Molly Ringwald said. She continued, “To have that much film, it made her job a little challenging. I think she did an incredible job.”
Judd Nelson outed Emilio Estevez as someone who had seen the entire four-hour movie, saying, “I believe Emilio and I saw an uncut compilation of all of Dede Allen’s footage. The whole film, everything we shot in sequence. No music, no color timing, no editing, just all slapped together. It was over four hours long. It was like being in detention. The movie ends, I’m sitting next to Emilio [Estevez], and he looks over to me and he goes, 'it’s unreleasable.'”
Now, that's not a ringing endorsement for seeing the uncut movie, but I am dying to know what hit the cutting room floor. During the video, we learned that a lot of the stuff they did on camera was improv.
My favorite part of that interview was when Judd Nelson recalled Hughes' collaborative spirit: "Hughes meant it when he said to us to participate in the process of making this movie."
Michael Anthony Hall said, "That whole sequence when we were getting high, that was all improvised."
That's pretty unique for the time, but that was the John Hughes spirit.
Another beautiful part of the video was when the cast also reflected on the film's enduring message.
Estevez summarized the film's core theme, "We're all different, but we're essentially all the same." And of course, no discussion of The Breakfast Club is complete without mentioning Bender's iconic fist pump – a gesture Nelson described simply as meaning "victory."
The reunion served as a powerful reminder of the film's legacy and the director who brought it to life. Michael Anthony Hall perhaps summed it up best: "I'm most thankful for John Hughes." Watching the cast together again, it's clear that fans everywhere share that gratitude.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
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