In honor of the 35th anniversary of Alone at homestar Macaulay Culkin and director Chris Columbus sat down for a conversation about the film’s past, present and future.
Somehow marking the very first time they discussed the hit film together, the two men reunited for a screening at the Academy Museum on Saturday where they started at the beginning, with John Hughes being the first to bring the script to Columbus. This happened after the filmmaker left Hughes. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – with Columbus admitting, “I had to call John Hughes and tell him, ‘I don’t get along with Chevy Chase. I don’t think I can make a movie with him'” – and thinking he may never direct again.
Of course he did, with Alone at home becoming a smash hit and a holiday classic still to this day, something Columbus attributes to “a sense of timelessness in the look and feel of the film.” It’s also in the elaborate traps that 8-year-old Kevin McCallister sets for thieves Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), which have been designed so realistically that “every time [the stuntmen] I did a stunt, it wasn’t funny. We looked at it and thought they were dead.
The stars are also there. In the scene where Pesci’s character’s head catches fire, the actor had to wear a special cap; Columbus recalled “when we gave it to Joe, he said, ‘There’s no way I’m going to wear the damn thing.'” Producer Mark Radcliffe then “pulled out his 9-year-old daughter, put the cap on her, and we put the torch on him to show Joe Pesci, everything’s going to be okay, Joe, everything’s okay,” which eventually convinced him. And Stern had a real tarantula crawling on his face, but he couldn’t scream because the spider would then “bite and get angry”; he had to pretend to scream and add his voice in post, the filmmaker revealed.
The conversation also touched on possible ways Culkin and Columbus could return to the franchise; they both stopped after 1992 Home Alone 2: Lost in New Yorkbut the films continued, with those of 1997 Home Alone 3years 2002 Home Alone 42012 Home Alone: The Holiday Heist and 2021 Home Sweet Home Alone.
Columbus was honest about his thoughts on these films, saying The Hollywood Reporter before the onstage conversation, his problem with returning to the franchise is that “it’s been revisited with really bad sequels. Sorry to insult anyone, but they completely screwed that up. It started with Home Alone 3 and then from there, things went downhill; Home Alone 3 is somehow the best of the group of bad films. He partly blamed their failure on the use of cables in action scenes, which “give a false impression of the stunt”, and as Culkin pointed out, “they didn’t have us either”.
Despite this, Culkin recently spoke publicly about a sequel idea he had that he developed at the event. “I like the idea that maybe Kevin is older, he’s like a widower or something. He’s raising his kid and they don’t really get along, he’s working all the time. … it’s almost like a Wild, wild kind of thing,” the actor mused. “There are two ways to do it. First, he leaves the child behind by mistake; he calls his mother and says, “Sorry, I understand now.” Or I leave it behind intentionally, like, “Oh, that made me the man I am today.” »
Culking continued: “Then he locks me out of the house and he sets traps and things like that. And I think I see them coming because, you know, I’m the expert. That also explains why I don’t call the police or the locksmith because I’m embarrassed that my child is beating me and that’s my job. And I think the house would be kind of a metaphor for getting back into the child’s heart.”
Chris Columbus, Macaulay Culkin, and Academy Museum Director of Film Programs KJ Relth-Miller.
Foundation of the Academy Museum/Andrew Ge
Columbus, however – who said he has “heard about 600 different ideas” over the years on how to continue the story – thinks it would only be worth it if Culkin, Pesci and Stern all returned, as Culkin joked: “Joe Pesci is 82; I’m pretty sure it would still fall, right?
The filmmaker explained THR that twenty years ago he considered the idea that Harry and Marv would get out of prison after 20 years and “they’re bitter, they’re angry and they want revenge. And who do they want revenge against? Macaulay. And at that time I thought Macaulay might have a child, kind of around Kevin’s age, and it would be his own child dealing with these two guys.” Columbus added, however, “I don’t think Joe Pesci would be interested. I haven’t seen Dan Stern since 1992, I don’t know if he would be interested. The problem is when you make a movie like this, a lot of it is really based on casting;
The pair ended the conversation by answering questions from children in the audience, while Culkin talked about showing the film to his own children – who don’t realize he’s the star.
“They don’t even call him Alone at homethey call him Kevin. They say, “Wow, Kevin is really funny”; I say, “He’s as beautiful, someone as your mother [Brenda Song] it might be,” he joked. “I showed my oldest – he wanted to see a picture of me and my siblings, so I pulled out this old picture; they’re all my brothers and sisters and he looks me straight in the eye and says, “Who is that?” This sounds like Kevin. I say, ‘Oh, no, no one, here’s your aunt.’
Culkin continued, “Their little cousin was done, she’s 5. They told her, ‘We’re going to watch Kevin This evening.’ And she turned to me and said, “You’re Kevin.” I said, “No, you’re Kevin, shut up!” I try to keep the magic alive. He left the stage giving Home Alone 2‘s signature line, telling the crowd: “Merry Christmas, you dirty animals.”
