The planned sequel to 1985’s St Elmo’s Fire still lacks a director and doesn’t even have a writer yet, but the original cast have all agreed to return.
Back in August we learned that there was a plan in place to bring back the core cast of St Elmo’s Fire for a belated sequel. When Rob Lowe, one of the stars of St Elmo’s Fire, broke news of the sequel, he stated that negotiations were happening but that none of the cast were yet confirmed. A few months on, Lowe (who seems to be the film’s unofficial spokesperson) has popped up again to confirm that every member of the original film’s core cast will be returning. That means Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Andie MacDowell and Mare Winningham are all set to reprise their roles in the film.
Don’t start breaking out the open-topped Jeeps and the saxophones just yet, though. Lowe also added that the project doesn’t have a director or writer yet. The original film was co-written and directed by the late, great Joel Schumacher who passed away at the age of 80 in 2020. Finding somebody with Schumacher’s talent and sensibility will be something of a tall order for Sony, the studio backing the project.
Speaking about the revival (via World Of Reel), Lowe said: “We’re very much in contact now because we are actively trying to do a St Elmo’s Fire sequel. I’ve been waiting for [the sequel] for 20 years, 25 years. “It’s moving along. It’s going a little more slowly than I would have liked, but that’s a good thing because we’re trying to find the right writer and the right story. But all of the actors, everybody is onboard. Everybody’s excited.”
The 1985 drama by the late Joel Schumacher arrived when that decade’s coming-of-age genre was at its peak, coronating its young cast as a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. The ensemble film led to its cast being dubbed ‘The Brat Pack’ by the media, signalling the beginning of the end for a genre which gave us a plethora of classic films, from the wackiness of Weird Science to the moody angst of The Breakfast Club.
The Brat Pack have been back on the radar of late, given that Andrew McCarthy’s documentary Brats released this year, a providing a nostalgic look back the the era of 1980s teen movies. In it, McCarthy caught up with various co-stars and other familiar faces from the era. Perhaps most interestingly, the film tries to examine how the Brat Pack label affected their personal lives and careers.
The documentary is available to stream currently on Disney+.
