The movie John Hughes wanted to delete from history: “It bothers me”
During the 1980s, John Hughes transformed the teen movie, making films that actually resonated with many young people – teenagers hadn’t been properly considered on screen like this before, but soon, characters like Ferris Bueller, Andie Walsh, and John Bender represented a whole new world of adolescence.
Hughes’ films might have aged badly in some respects – that can’t be disputed – but his impact on cinema was undeniable. Even filmmakers like Sofia Coppola cite Hughes as a massive source of inspiration, because he presented the trials and tribulations of young people’s lives with humour and understanding, creating some iconic pieces of American cinema as a result.
Despite his success, Hughes didn’t love everything he was involved in making, and when it came to a certain comedy he wrote the screenplay for, he quickly came to wish that his name could be erased from it. But it was too late.
In 1990, after penning various National Lampoon movies and finding acclaim with Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Hughes received the biggest hit of his career when he wrote Home Alone. The Christmas movie quickly became a classic, elevating Hughes’ name to an even higher status in Hollywood. Having grossed $476.7million, making it one of the most successful movies of the year, Hughes was now more in demand than ever.
His next project was a screenplay called Career Opportunities, which was directed by Bryan Gordon, but it was an utter disaster. Every filmmaker is going to have a project that they’re not proud of, and Hughes was no exception – he thought that the rom-com was so bad that he wished it never even existed. Well, maybe he should’ve thought of that when he was writing it.
Of course, a screenplay can stand solidly, but in the hands of a less capable director, the finished result can be a bit of a mess. That’s debatable here, though, because a premise revolving around a guy who works at Target meeting a rich girl who has fallen asleep in the dressing rooms – now that doesn’t scream glittering box office success to me.
According to The New York Times, Hughes saw the movie as “cheap and vulgar,” with the direction of the Jennifer Connelly movie failing to reflect what he had written in his screenplay. Hughes could only think of one thing to do – remove his name from the credits. If his name wasn’t there, people wouldn’t have to associate this terrible excuse for a romantic comedy with him, but Universal weren’t having it. He was too famous now.
“Suddenly I’m a commodity,” Hughes said. “If Home Alone hadn’t come out, my name wouldn’t be on Career Opportunities four times. My big fear is disappointing people. It bothers me if even one person comes out of that theatre and says John Hughes is a jerk because I paid $7.50 and look what I got.”
His name might have been on the project, but Hughes could at least be grateful that few people remembered Career Opportunities in the years following its release. It’s titles like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Sixteen Candles that have endured much longer.
