The Brat Pack may be getting back together.
Demi Moore, currently generating Oscar buzz for her daring turn in “The Substance,” revealed that discussions are underway with Sony, the studio behind “St. Elmo’s Fire,” to make a sequel to the seminal 1985 film.
“The update is definitely, conversations are happening,” Moore said in an interview at the Toronto Film Festival. “[The] studio has been really behind [and] driving this. As far as I know, everyone seems to be up for it, which I think would be amazing.”
The original movie explored the lives of a group of recent college grads as the navigated that difficult early period of adulthood, one filled with relationship troubles and career anxiety. It also helped elevate the profiles of Moore and fellow cast-mates like Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham, Judd Nelson and Andrew McCarthy (whose recent documentary “Brats” revisited the furor that surrounded that group of actors, dubbed “The Brat Pack” in a snarky New York Magazine piece). Moore said there’s no script yet for the sequel and that the studio is “looking for the right partner” to write it.
“Then I think we would all probably start to jump in and figure out who are these people this many years later,” Moore teased, while stopping by Variety’s Toronto Film Festival Studio, sponsored by J.Crew and SharkNinja. “It was such a pivotal film for all of us involved. And…having participated with Andrew McCarthy on his doc…it would be a real joy.”
As for “The Substance,” which received a 13-minute standing ovation at Cannes, Moore admits she’s gratified by the intensity of the response from viewers. The movie follows Elizabeth Sparkle, an acclaimed actress turned fitness guru, who is plunged into a personal crisis after she loses her job as a TV host after a sexist executive deems her too old and unattractive. In response, Elizabeth takes a mysterious drug that creates a younger doppelgänger (Margaret Qualley), who replaces her on the show, becoming an overnight sensation. It’s a film that skewers Hollywood’s obsession with youth and arbitrary beauty standards.
“It’s impacted people,” Moore said. “You know, my hope is that it would bring a cultural shift, that it would be part of the conversation that starts to move the needle…allowing us to see the importance of being more gentle, more kind to ourselves.”
But making the movie was a physically grueling process. “The Substance” is a body horror film (a genre that Moore had barely heard of), and the movie follows Elizabeth as she literally sheds her skin to become this other self. In other parts of the movie, where the substance is having side effects that force Elizabeth to become haggard and prematurely elderly, Moore was forced to contort herself in punishing ways. She worked with a movement coach so she could be “…careful not to hurt myself because I spent a lot of time in a hunched over position.”
She also had to endure extensive makeup and sit for body molds, a process that took “anywhere from me from six to nine-and-a-half hours.”
Moore believes that the grotesque lengths that Elizabeth goes to preserve her youth are relatable to people in the entertainment industry and beyond.
“I knew how important and how relevant this subject matter was, not just for women…but I think for all of us as human beings,” she said.
