I’ll open by admitting that I’m 49 and that we had an HBO subscription when I was growing up. My favorite movies were probably Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Heathers, Dirty Dancing and The Goonies. Some of those are problematic, which I only realized when rewatching them in the past decade or so. I saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by the late great John Hughes of course, but it wasn’t on the top of my list. The protagonist Ferris, played by Matthew Broderick, was a self-centered jerk, and I hated how he treated his best friend, Cameron, played by Alan Douglas Ruck.
Spoiler – Ferris insisted on taking Cameron’s father’s Ferrari out as they played hooky from school, eventually destroying the luxury car. Again and again, Ferris ignored Cameron’s pleas not to take the car out and to drive carefully. The Ferrari had a lot of extra miles on it at the end of the day, some of which accrued when two valets took the car out while Ferris, his girlfriend Sloane and Cameron had an adventure in Chicago. There’s a spinoff coming centered around those valets. It’s called Sam and Victor’s Day Off and is the brainchild of the creators of Cobra Kai.
A spinoff of the 1986 John Hughes film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is in the works at Paramount Pictures titled Sam and Victor’s Day Off from Cobra Kai creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald. Bill Posley (Bitch Ass) is set to write the film.
Sam and Victor’s Day Off will follow the same-day adventure of the titular valets who took the Ferrari on a joy ride in the Matthew Broderick-starrer.
In the original film, the valet attendants were not given official names. They were played by Richard Edson and Larry “Flash” Jenkins, who died in 2019.
Paul Young (Key & Peele) is producing through his company, Make Good Content; the company’s executive Devon Young will oversee the project. Stephen Cedars, Benji Kleiman, and Scott Yacyshyn will be associate producers.
Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald are producing under their Counterbalance Entertainment banner with their head of development Dina Hillier serving as an executive producer.
The trio is the creators, executive producers, and showrunners of Netflix’s Emmy-nominated hit series, Cobra Kai, which reimagined The Karate Kid for a new audience.
Cobra Kai is an exceptional modern series with nods to the original 80s Karate Kid films. It’s one of the most popular series on Netflix for good reason, and I believe it’s remained consistently entertaining throughout the first four seasons. (Season five is coming on September 9th!) I really think that Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heal can do this spinoff justice. Plus, it’s not like I’m precious about the original movie. We’ll probably get to see Ferris, Cameron and Sloane as secondary characters. That means the actors don’t need to nail their mannerisms and look. Hopefully we’ll get some cameos from the original actors too (Mia Sara, who played Sloane, has stepped back from acting, but of course Matthew Broderick and Alan Douglas Ruck are still around). This sounds like fun and I’ll watch it!
photos via Avalon.red
Cobra kai works because they flipped the script making Johnny the down on his luck character and Daniel the privileged one. I’m absolutely not sold on this pitch but I’ll give it a chance.
I’ve only ever watched the trailer, but they really make Danny look like the bad guy. Which is crazy! But, as awful as Johnny was in the original movie, I was watching a comedian who commented that Daniel did a decent amount of the instigating in the first movie. I tried rewatching it a few years ago, with my mom, and she could not stop commenting on how stupid she thought the movie was, so I never finished it. I did see Karate Kid 2 again not that long ago, and WOW does that look like a fake movie by today’s standards
That’s funny, we watched the original recently and thought it held up really well. The beach scenes are beautifully filmed and Pat Morita (who received a best supporting actor Oscar nom) is absolutely wonderful.
There’s an “alternate” take on Karate Kid (on YouTube?) called something like “Daniel is the Real Bully”. I’ve not watched it but it’s apparently along the lines of what manda said, that Daniel is the instigator and actual bully in the story.
also, just one note on the car…Ferris didn’t destroy it, Cameron did that AFTER it was returned safely, albeit with several extra hundred miles on it.
This is actually a kind of clever idea; these two took the car, went off and had a day of fun, returned the car with not a scratch on it…I wanna know what they did that day!
The Goonies is one of my alltime favorites. Watched it recently with my partners daughter for the first time and she loved it. I also loved (and still do) Some kind of wonderful and Pretty in Pink. I don’t care too much about Ferris
This used to be one of my favorite movies. Maybe it was because I grew up around The Chicago suburbs where it was filmed or maybe because I thought the leads were all so good looking, and definitely love the name Sloane and had it on my baby name list.
I agree with all of this Erin! But a follow up with the 2 valets? I don’t have any interest in that. Cobra Kai works because we “knew” Johnny. I don’t care about 2 characters who, to my memory, weren’t even named.
I’m also 49 and love all these same movies, but Ferris was absolutely one of my favorites. Great cast and tons of fun all around. And I love the idea for this spin off. Also, while I can’t show my kids some of these movies (16 candles has too many problematic parts to ignore), Dirty Dancing absolutely holds up and the abortion storyline is more relevant now then when I first watched it.
Love, love, love the movie Heathers. Christian Slater was never hotter.