What happened to Joel Schumacher? Emilio Estevez slams late St. Elmo’s Fire director as a “nightmare and bully”

Emilio Estevez is calling out St. Elmo's Fire director Joel Schumacher for being a "nightmare and bully."

The Mighty Ducks star, 62, reflected on the making of the 1980s movie during Thursday's segment of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. When host John Horowitz asked him to name the worst note a director has ever given him, Emilio Estevez launched into a tirade.

“Have a good f–king time,'” Estevez said as he recalled what Schumacher told him while “screaming at the top of his lungs." Estevez added, “Here’s looking at you, Joel Schumacher.”

Writer-director Joel Schumacher died back in June 2020 at the age of 80. Known for St. Elmo’s Fire, Flatliners, and two Batman movies, he succumbed in New York to a yearlong battle with cancer, a representative announced at the time. He was also known for the horror comedy The Lost Boys (1987), as well as The Client (1994) and A Time to Kill (1996); and 8MM (1999).

Emilio Estevez slams Joel Schumacher, here's why:

St. Elmo's Fire came out back in 1985, not long after Estevez delivered his breakout performance in the cult classic The Breakfast Club, directed by John Hughes.

According to Emilio Estevez, however, working with Hughes was far better than working with Schumacher. According to him, while Hughes was “collaborative” and someone “who was a mentor in many ways, who was calm [and] listened,” Schumacher was “wildly insecure and was a nightmare on set and was a bully.”

The Bobby director revealed that the experience had a lasting impact on him and would eventually shape his approach to directing.

“I vowed never to speak to my actors that way, if I ever got a chance to direct,” he said. “In 1984, I thought, ‘This is the best lesson a young actor who wants to direct could ever get.’ Thank you, Joel.”

Elsewhere in the segment, Emilio Estevez also offered fans an update on the sequel to St. Elmo's Fire, revealing that Sony Pictures is “fast-tracking” the film. The movie, written by Stuart Blumberg and produced by Will Gluck, has yet to hire a director.

As for the original cast joining the crew, Estevez said, “I know Rob [Lowe] is keen on it.” The star added, “It will really depend on the script. But I know the studio’s keen on it.”

Lowe previously admitted that talks to produce the sequel have long been in motion, as he told Entertainment Tonight in a July 2024 interview,

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"We’ve met with the studio and I have been talking about doing it for about four months."

However, at the time of writing, further details about the same remain unclear.

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