Home Alone Chris Columbus

Development

Writer and producer John Hughes conceived Home Alone while preparing to go on vacation. He said: "I was going away on vacation, 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?'"[8] Hughes wrote eight pages of notes that developed into the screenplay.[8] Imagining that children are naturally most scared of robbers, Hughes also worked that aspect into the plot of the film.[8]

Home Alone was initially set to be financed and distributed by Warner Bros. Hughes promised that he could make the movie for less than $10 million, considerably less than most feature film production budgets of that era. Concerned that the film might exceed that amount, Hughes met secretly with 20th Century Fox before production to see if they would fund the project if Warner proved inflexible. According to executive producer Scott Rosenfelt, a copy of the script was "clandestinely" delivered to Fox, bypassing the legal restrictions that would have otherwise prevented Fox from seeing it until the project was in turnaround.[9] Early in production, the budget grew to $14.7 million. Warner demanded that it be cut by $1.2 million; the producers responded with a memo arguing that the budget could not be cut any further. Unconvinced, Warner shut down production the next day, but it quickly resumed when Fox took up Hughes on his offer. The final budget grew to $18 million.[9]

Hughes had asked Patrick Read Johnson to direct, but he was committed to directing Spaced Invaders (1990).[10] He turned to Chris Columbus, who had left National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) before shooting started because of a personality clash with starring actor Chevy Chase, who Columbus said treated him "like dirt".[11] Hughes gave him the scripts for both Home Alone and Reach the Rock (1998); Columbus chose to direct Home Alone, as he found it funnier and liked the Christmas theme.[12][13] Columbus did an uncredited rewrite of the script; among his contributions was the character of Old Man Marley, which he created to give the story a more serious layer, as well as a more emotional, happier ending.[14]

Casting

Hughes suggested to Columbus that they cast Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, because of his experience while shooting Uncle Buck (1989). Columbus met with 200 other actors for the part, as he felt it was his "directorial responsibility".[13][15] John Mulaney was asked to audition for the role of Kevin after being scouted in a children's sketch comedy group, but his parents refused the opportunity.[16] Columbus finally met with Culkin and agreed he was the right choice.[13]

After Robert De Niro and Jon Lovitz turned down the role of Harry, Joe Pesci accepted it.[17] The role of Uncle Frank was written for Kelsey Grammer, but was given to Gerry Bamman when Grammer was unavailable.[18][19]

Daniel Stern was cast as Marv, but before shooting started, he was told that the production schedule had been extended from six weeks to eight. He dropped out after as he would not be paid more for the extended schedule. Daniel Roebuck was hired to replace him, but after two days of rehearsal, Columbus felt he was lacking chemistry with Pesci and brought back Stern.[9] Roebuck later said that, although he was upset to be fired from the production, he now believed the experience was "a little blip of unimportance".[20] Chris Farley auditioned for the role of the Santa Claus impersonator, but he failed to impress Columbus.[21]

John Candy was available for only one day to film his scenes, which took 23 hours to shoot. He was paid only $414, since he did the film as a favor to Hughes. In return, he was the only actor Hughes allowed to go off-script; according to Columbus, all his dialogue was improvised.[9]

Filming

Principal photography took place from February 14, 1990, to May 8, 1990, over a course of 83 days on an $18.3 million budget.[22][23][24] The house exterior scenes were filmed on location at a three-story single-family house located at 671 Lincoln Avenue[25] in the North Shore village of Winnetka, Illinois, where many of Hughes' previous films had also been shot,[26] but at different houses. The only interiors of the house used for filming that made it to the finished film were the main staircase, basement, attic and most of the first floor landing,[27] while all the other interiors of the house (including the aforementioned rooms) were duplicated on a sound stage to allow more room for equipment and crew. These sets were built in the then-disused gym of New Trier High School's west campus, previously used by Hughes for Uncle Buck and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where the production company had already set up its offices.[9] 671 Lincoln Avenue later became a tourist attraction.[28] The tree house in the back yard was built specifically for the film and dismantled after filming ended.[17]

Kevin runs away from his third encounter with Marley in Hubbard Woods Park in Winnetka.[29] In addition, the scene where Kevin wades in his neighbor's flooded basement was shot at the empty swimming pool of the aforementioned campus of New Trier High School, with the American Airlines DC-10 first class cabin interiors done on the basketball courts. The church exteriors were shot at Trinity United Methodist Church in Wilmette, Illinois, while the interiors were shot at Grace Episcopal Church in Oak Park, Illinois.[30] Filming also took place over four sixteen-hour days at O'Hare International Airport, which served for both itself and Orly Airport in Paris. John Candy filmed his cameo appearance for the film over the course of one day at Meigs Field.[22]

For the film within a film, Angels with Filthy Souls (the title of which parodies the 1938 crime film Angels with Dirty Faces), shooting took only one day, on the final "test day" prior to the official start of principal photography. To create the illusion that the film was an authentic 1940s gangster film, the scene was filmed on black-and-white negative film, and Johnny's office featured props from that era. Like much of the film, most of the sequence was shot with low, wide angles that, according to journalist Darryn King, "capture the action as if a child were perceiving it".[31] Originally, Ralph Foody was to play Snakes and Michael Guido was to play Johnny, but since Foody had recently undergone knee replacement surgery, he was unable to do the death scene where Snakes drops to his knees, leading to the roles being switched.[32]

Cinematographer Julio Macat recalled that Pesci was more difficult to work with than Culkin. The older actor believed some of the dialogue was not of a quality commensurate with his acting ability. He also resented the early unit calls, since they prevented him from starting his day with nine holes of golf as he preferred to do.[9] After he took the assistant director by the collar one day to complain about this, daily call times were moved back from 7 to 9 a.m. to accommodate his rounds.[33] On the other end of the schedule, the crew had limited time to film the many nighttime scenes, since Culkin could not work any later than 10 p.m. due to his age.[13]

Pesci said in a 2022 interview with People of working with Culkin, "I intentionally limited my interactions with him to preserve the dynamic" and made sure not "to come across on the screen that we were in any way friendly" in order to "maintain the integrity of the adversarial relationship".[34]

On the set, Pesci and Stern both had difficulty refraining from cursing, which became annoying to Pesci, since Culkin was on set as well. In fact, the only curse words that made it into the film were "shit", accidentally said by Daniel Stern when his shoe fell through the pet door, and "hell", which was said by both Pesci and Stern after their characters encounter one another after going through Kevin's booby traps and by Johnny to the character of Snakes in Angels with Filthy Souls.[35][15] Pesci's use of "cartoon cursing", or menacing gibberish, garnered comparisons to Looney Tunes character Yosemite Sam.[36]

The film's stunts also created tension for the crew during shooting. Columbus said, "Every time the stunt guys did one of those stunts it wasn't funny. We'd watch it, and I would just pray that the guys were alive."[13][37] Stunts were originally prepared with safety harnesses, but because of their visibility on camera, the film's final stunts were performed without them.[13] Troy Brown and Leon Delaney were stuntmen for Pesci and Stern, respectively.[38] An injury had occurred between Pesci and Culkin during one of the rehearsals for the scene in which Harry tries to bite off Kevin's finger; Culkin still has the scar.[15] The tarantula that walks on Stern's face was real.[38]

Senta Moses, who played Tracy, recalled in 2020 that one of the most difficult scenes to shoot was the family's run through O'Hare International Airport to catch their flight. While it does not last long, it required several days to film. "There were thousands of extras, all expertly choreographed so none of us would be in danger running at full speed through the American Airlines terminal", she told The Hollywood Reporter. "And we ran at full speed. Sometimes we'd bump into each other, like a multi-car pileup on the expressway, and just crack up laughing ... There were so many setups and narrowly missed moments of disaster, but to my knowledge, no one got hurt."[39]