9 Movies That Studios Were Scared Of Releasing

8. The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club
Universal Pictures

The Breakfast Club is one of the most beloved films of the 1980s, fondly remembered for its likeable, relatable, and funny cast of characters, and a surprisingly touching ending. But, before it became insanely popular, the studio was deeply pessimistic about its financial and critical outlook.

Why? Well, back then, there was apparently an unspoken rule that teen movies had to contain nudity (which doesn't feature in The Breakfast Club) or they wouldn't sell. Plus, this was only John Hughes' second directorial effort, and the higher-ups at Universal thought that he lacked filmmaking experience.

But the studio wasn't just scared of releasing the film - they went as far as labelling it "a piece of sh*t". In an interview with MTV, Hughes described how the Universal brass reacted when they first saw the film, and the response... well, it was pretty bad:

"The film ended, [the studio executives] stood up and didn't say a word. I said, 'I think they don't like it.' The producer said, 'It's a piece of sh*t. It's horrible. It's just a bunch of kids in school talking.' They thought it would be Animal House meets My Dinner With Andre. They put it out in February, which is an awful month [for films], and it was a hit right away."

However, like the filmmaker said, The Breakfast Club went on to be a massive hit, despite Universal dumping it in February to try and bury it.

In this post: 
Joker (2019)
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!