The Big Picture
Sony plans to reunite the Brat Pack members from St. Elmo’s Fire in a new project.
The film was a financial success despite being disdained by critics at the time.
John Parr’s song “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” hit #1 on the Billboard charts in 1985.
With the new documentary Brats reigniting interest in the 1980s cohort of actors known as the “Brat Pack”, Sony is planning to rekindle St. Elmo’s Fire. The studio is looking at reuniting the cast of the seminal 1985 drama. Deadline reports that the film is in the early planning stages.
The proposed project, which would reunite the characters from the original film and see where their lives had taken them over the intervening years, is still on the drawing board. No script has been written, and the cast members have not yet been approached to reprise their roles from the film. Along with The Breakfast Club, the film is considered to be the most prominent film of the so-called “Brat Pack”, a group of young actors who were dubbed as such in a New York Magazine article by David Blum that ran thirty-nine years ago this month, in 1985. Andrew McCarthy, one of the Pack, directed a documentary on the group, Brats; it was released on Hulu this month. In his review, Collider’s Nate Richard praised the film, finding that it “feels less like a puff piece and more like therapy for its many subjects.”
What Is ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ About?
Directed by the late Joel Schumacher, St. Elmo’s Fire stars six Brat Pack members as recent Georgetown University graduates who frequent a local tavern, St. Elmo’s Bar. They include McCarthy as sullen journalist Kevin, Emilio Estevez as law student and waiter Kirby, Ally Sheedy as aspiring architect Leslie, Judd Nelson as unfaithful yuppie Alec, Rob Lowe as unhappily-married ex-frat boy Billy, and Demi Moore as party girl Jules. Over the course of the film, the main characters break up, make up, and endure the trials of adjusting to adulthood. The film also stars Mare Winningham, Andie MacDowell, Martin Balsam, and Joyce Van Patten. Although it was disdained by critics at the time, it was a financial success, making over $37 million USD on a $10 million budget. It launched Schumacher’s career as an in-demand Hollywood director, and served as a springboard to stardom for many of its cast members.
St. Elmo’s Fire wasn’t just a success at the box ofice; the film’s theme song, John Parr’s “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” hit #1 on the Billboard charts in 1985. Ironically, the song’s lyrics were not written about the movie, which Parr had not yet seen, but about Canadian athlete Rick Hansen, who circled the globe in his wheelchair on the Man in Motion Tour. The song’s video serves as a sequel of sorts to the film, depicting the cast examining the now abandoned and burnt-out St. Elmo’s Bar.
Sony’s St. Elmo’s Fire reunion is in the early planning stages; no script has yet been written. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
St. Elmo’s Fire
A group of friends, just out of college, struggle with adulthood.