- It’s been almost two decades since “Home Alone” came out, yet the film is still widely beloved.
- There are some facts that even “Home Alone” fans might not know – like the fact Macaulay Culkin’s brother had a guest appearance.
- It turns out, parts of the movie were improvised.
The holidays wouldn’t be the same without the “Home Alone” franchise. There are very few people who can resist the shenanigans of a young Macaulay Culkin who finds himself left behind when his family heads to Paris for Christmas break.
Thwarting potential burglars and learning to fend for himself as a young kid, there’s so much to love about this film. There’s also plenty you might not know about it. Continue reading for 10 things you probably didn’t know about “Home Alone.”
Macaulay Culkin keeps in touch with his on-screen mom.
In a 2015 interview with Us Weekly, Catherine O’Hara revealed that she and Macaulay Culkin still talk after all these years. The best part about the on-screen mother-son duo’s relationship is that Culkin still jokingly called O’Hara “Mommy” when he saw her unexpectedly.
Warner Bros. initially had the rights for the screenplay.
Although the film was ultimately produced by Hughes Entertainment and presented by Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros. initially had rights to the project.
According to what Mark Radcliffe, an associate producer on the film, told Chicago magazine, a budget dispute occurred three weeks before production was to start and the crew was worried about having to lay everyone off. Twentieth Century Fox picked up the rights and production continued as planned.
It took weeks to find the right house for the film.
As any good location scouting goes, it took several weeks for Columbus and his crew to find the right house to star as the backdrop for "Home Alone," according to Entertainment Weekly.
Ultimately, Columbus chose a house in Winnetka, Illinois because it was both warm and menacing. The house was sold in 2012 for $1.585 million, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The film held a cinematic record for nearly 30 years.
Forbes reported that until 2017, "Home Alone" has been the highest domestic theatrical grossing live-action comedy with a total of $285.7 million.
The film held this impressive record for 27 years, until the Chinese film "Never Say Die" surpassed it.
Macaulay Culkin's younger brother appeared in the film.
In his first ever acting credit, Macaulay Culkin's younger brother Kieran appeared as one of the McCallister clan.
The brothers would appear together on screen once again in "Home Alone 2: Lost In New York."
The film was written in less than two weeks.
John Hughes, who also wrote '80s blockbusters "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink," and "Sixteen Candles," crafted the screenplay for "Home Alone" in exactly nine days.
His son James Hughes told Chicago magazine that the film was written after a family trip to Europe in response to his father's severe traveler's anxiety.
Culkin has trouble watching the film.
In an interview with Ellen Degeneres, Culkin revealed he can't watch "Home Alone" without giving too much personal context to the film.
He told Degeneres, "I'm remembering that day on set, like, how I was hiding my Pepsi behind the couch. I can't watch it the same way other people can."
In the same interview, he called the film "background radiation at Christmastime."
"Home Alone" sprang from a small domestic problem.
"I was going away on vacation,'" John Hughes told Time magazine in 1990, "and making a list of everything I didn't want to forget. I thought, 'Well, I'd better not forget my kids.' Then I thought, 'What if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do?'"
Chris Columbus landed the job on accident — kind of.
Of course, John Hughes choosing Chris Columbus to direct this iconic film was no mistake, but it's safe to say this iconic pairing almost didn't happen.
According to Chicago magazine, Columbus was originally working on a film with Chevy Chase and called Hughes saying he didn't want to work with Chase anymore.
A few weeks later Hughes sent the script of "Home Alone" to Columbus and asked him to direct the film.
A lot of the film was improvised by actor John Candy.
Director Chris Colombus told Entertainment Weekly, "I remember adding that. I think most of the changes in the script came about on set when I was dealing with certain actors like John Candy, who loved to improvise. John took those scenes and ran with them. We'd do a couple scripted takes and then we would improvise about four or five other takes, and a lot of the improvisation ended up in the film."
For example, according to Colombus, the scene in which Candy talks to Catherine O'Hara about being left in the funeral home alone with the corpse all night "just came out of nowhere."
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