St. Elmo's Fire is a 1985 coming-of-age film directed by Joel Schumacher. The film, starring Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Mare Winningham, is one of the defining movies of the Brat Pack genre, and revolves around a group of friends that have just graduated from Georgetown University and their adjustment to their post-university lives and the responsibilities of encroaching adulthood. In August 2009, ABC won a bidding war among networks to adapt the Joel Schumacher film into a TV comedy-drama.

Main characters

• Kirby Keager (Emilio Estevez) - Known to his friends as "Kirbo", he's a waiter at St. Elmo's Bar with hopes of becoming a lawyer and lives with his former college friend Kevin Dolenz. He develops an obsession with a woman he met in college (Andie MacDowell) after a recent encounter with her and is willing to do anything to impress her, including changing his career.
• Billy Hixx (Rob Lowe) - The "frat boy" of the group, he is unable to keep a job but has a great talent for playing the saxophone. At the beginning of the film he is a reluctant husband and father but rarely goes home to sleep. He misses college days and feels lost in the after-college work life. Along with the problems in his marriage, he's a wild guy and a ladies' man.
• Kevin Dolenz (Andrew McCarthy) - a writer with a sullen streak who, Leslie says, "just needs to fall in love." His writing job only allows him to write obituaries, but he's searching for the meaning of life and is working hard towards writing an article about it. He is secretly in love with Leslie, whom he's known for years. He rooms with his pal Kirby Keager. Andrew McCarthy took up smoking for this role and wasn't able to quit the habit until 1995.
• Julianna "Jules" Van Patten (Demi Moore) - The "party girl" of the group, with an extravagant and wild lifestyle. Jules used to be Leslie Hunter's roommate and is still her best friend. She has a very fancy, highly decorated apartment and works in banking. She loves a good time, but she's also looking for the love she struggled to find growing up; her father is emotionally distant and he's had many wives. She's also feeling a lot of pressures to take care of a family financial issue (her "stepmonster" as she calls her, who was cruel to her as a child, is terminally ill) and to handle her own finances after a crisis happens in her life.
• Alec Newbury (Judd Nelson) - a ruthless, ambitious yuppie and young Democrat, pursuing a career in politics. He's desperate to marry Leslie, yet she continues to turn him down, leading to him having an affair with a lingerie model stating "I'll say no when Leslie says yes." Everyone's surprised when he starts working for a Republican senator. At the start of the film, he has just moved in with Leslie and is still fixing their place up.
• Leslie Hunter (Ally Sheedy) - Alec's yuppie girlfriend who wants to pursue a career as an architect before marrying and having children. She's a romantic, and also seems to be trying to get more of a sense of who she is before sharing her life completely with a man; possibly in order to not lose her sense of self later. She lives with Alec, but is starting to feel doubts about her relationship with him.
• Wendy Beamish (Mare Winningham) - a girl from a wealthy family, the "innocent" of the group, and a painfully shy virgin who devotes her life to helping others (she works in Social Services). Wendy is trying to break away from her family's overprotectiveness, move out on her own, and assert her independence, particularly from her father (played by Martin Balsam), who is pressuring her to marry the man of his choice. She, however, is in love with Billy Hicks, although she knows her father will never consider him suitable for her. In the end, Wendy gets her own apartment and loses her virginity to Billy.Mare Winningham was pregnant while she played a virgin.

The film also features Andie MacDowell as Dale Biberman, a hospital intern and the object of Kirby's attraction.