What Happens If You Set The Breakfast Club After The Apocalypse?
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Even having survived the Mayan apocalypse a few weeks back, the end of the world is still big business. And if you can combine post-apocalyptic mayhem with a pre-existing young adult book? Well, that’s the sort of thing that’s the sort of thing that gets Hollywood execs foaming at the mouth. That combo of teen drama and Armageddon blues is at the heart of Monument 14, a new film project being described as “The Breakfast Club set after the apocalypse.”
Monument 14 is based on the young adult novel of the same name, by Emmy Laybourne. It was published this past June and is the first of a trilogy. Deadline’s story describes the action like so: “A group of teens are trapped together in a chain superstore and face the prospect of life, death and love and hate while the world as they know it ends right outside.” So, sort of like Dawn of the Dead but with more teen angst.
Director Brad Peyton will be helming Monument 14, but there isn’t a writer attached to pen the adaptation just yet. Peyton most recently directed Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and his upcoming filmography is full of other family-friendly or teen-skewing projects. It’s unclear at this point if Monument 14 will be targeted as a family flick or if it’ll focus on teens and older. (For the record, Peyton has also recently been attached as the director of DC’s Lobo movie, although we haven’t heard any news about that one for some time now).
Peyton told Deadline:
As soon as I read the first chapter, I knew I wanted to do this movie. It’s such a great concept and the kids felt real to me. The whole experience of living through the end of the world is an exciting one to try to capture on film, especially from such an original perspective.
“Breakfast Club after the apocalypse” is the sort of shorthand that Hollywood loves, but there’s a reason John Hughes’ Breakfast Club is a classic movie and its countless other imitators generally aren’t. We’ll have to see if Monument 14 can live up to that big talk.
The second book in the series, Monument 14: Sky On Fire, is set to come out in June.
