Carl Kurlander: Last News

Carl Kurlander, who went from being director Joel Schumacher’s assistant to writing St. Elmo’s fire with him, wrote a look back on that film for Deadline as well as a tribute when the director passed away., Kurlander today shares memories about Louie Anderson, the comic and actor who died last Friday in Las Vegas at age 68. Kurlander co-authored The F Word: How to Survive Your Family with Louie Anderson and was a consultant on his The Louie Show on CBS. His other credits include St Elmo’s Fire, he has been a senior lecturer at the U of Pittsburgh and producer of Chasing Covid and other titles. Here he discusses the empathy Anderson showed to most everyone around him, and many career breaks he provided, actions informed by the slights and hardships he faced in his own life.  

Carl Kurlander is a screenwriter (St. Elmo’s Fire) who served as a writer-producer for four of Peter Engel’s NBC series. He also teaches at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has made a series of documentaries including the birth of educational television and how AI is poised to transform the way young people learn. He was mentored by Peter Engel, the man behind the TV fixture Saved by the Bell, who died last week. Here, Kurlander contrasts the wildly different paths taken by Engel and Fred Rogers that led each to generate programming that helped kids cope.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor A feature film sequel to the seminal 1985 Brat Pack movie “St. Elmo’s Fire” is in early development, Rob Lowe confirmed in a recent interview. Lowe and his son, John Owen Lowe, talked to “Entertainment Tonight” about their Netflix comedy series “Unstable,” and the actor spoke about the possibility of rebooting “St.

Rob Lowe says that talks about a potential St. Elmo’s Fire sequel are very real.

EXCLUSIVE: Andrew McCarthy‘s Hulu documentary Brats has brought back memories of the coming of age film where The Brat Pack was coined. Deadline can reveal that Sony is exploring the possibility of making a new version of St. Elmo’s Fire. This version would hinge on reuniting original cast members McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Mare Winningham.

Editor’s Note: Journalist David Blum might have forever coined The Brat Pack era, but it was Carl Kurlander who provided the reason the infamous New York article got written. St. Elmo’s Fire was a script Kurlander wrote with director Joel Schumacher, inspired by events in his life. Now an academic, Kurlander has written several guest columns for Deadline including a 35th anniversary remembrance of St. Elmo’s Fire. Why is he tapping again into those memories? He just watched Brats, the Hulu documentary that premiered at Tribeca, directed by and starring Andrew McCarthy. He was part of the St. Elmo’s Fire ensemble that felt maligned by a mag article published the week before the film was released and became a surprise hit. Here, Kurlander supplies some great dish — did you know Demi Moore‘s drug demons almost forced Joel Schumacher to replace her with the young singer Madonna? Or that Georgetown shunned the movie for immoral activity but OK’d The Exorcist because despite the vile goings on involving a possessed child, evil didn’t win? A little of that stuff would have helped McCarthy’s docu, which gets tedious as he attempts to expunge demons, even as cohorts like Moore, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy seem to be humoring him on camera. After all, that film launched fine futures for them, even if the moniker stung. McCarthy paints journo Blum as a villain, but in fairness, The Brat Pack was a far more clever coinage than putting “gate” on the end of every scandal since Watergate. Blum also unwittingly etched into permanent Hollywood history the memory of those actors when they were young and gorgeous. Who wants to be forgotten?