How the ‘Home Alone’ Parents Afforded This Crazy House, Revealed by the Director (Exclusive)

Home alone And Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Director Chris Columbus almost helmed another Christmas classic.

In this week’s episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘S Awards Chatter Podcast, the experienced filmmaker – who most recently produced the new version of Nosferatu– which hits theaters on Christmas Day – reflected on how a “bizarre” meeting with Chevy Chase led him to the franchise in the first place.

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It all began, Columbus recalled, when fellow Chicagoan John Hughes sent him the script National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacationwhich Hughes was set to produce and asked him to direct. Columbus, desperately needing the gig after some box office disappointments left his future directing prospects uncertain, enthusiastically agreed and began recording the second unit over Christmas.

He then sat down with the film’s star, Chevy Chase, and things quickly became very awkward. “I ask him all these questions and he was just dead and uninterested and distracted,” Columbus said. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is weird. “For an actor committed to this film, he really doesn’t want to talk about it.” Then, 40 minutes into the conversation, he says the most surreal thing I’ve ever heard in a meeting, before or after. He said to me, ‘Wait, you’re the director?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I thought you were the drummer.’ I don’t even know what the hell that meant.”

Afterward, Columbus described the “surreal” meeting to Hughes, who suggested that the three have dinner together to try to make things right. But this time, Columbus says, “It was even worse. (Chase) ignored me. It was like I wasn’t even involved in the film. Every time I brought up the film, he changed the subject.” Columbus came to the conclusion that he had no choice but to withdraw from the film, even though he had no idea whether he would get the opportunity to be in one to direct another film.

Just a week later, Hughes, “the ultimate human being,” sent Columbus another Christmas-themed script he had written and wanted to produce: Home alone. “Let’s talk about dodging a bullet,” Columbus marveled some 35 years later.

While Hughes was determined to cast the young Macaulay Culkin in the role of the film’s main character, Kevin McCallister, Columbus was initially unsure. “That’s why John Hughes was a great producer for a director, and I learned a lot from him,” Columbus explained: “He said, ‘Would you take a look at meeting Macaulay?’ I said, “Yes, I’d like to meet Macaulay, but I’d also like to meet everyone else.” I ended up meeting 300 other kids too. Absolute colossal waste of time because then I met Macaulay again and it was magical.”

As for the rumor that Chris Farley was almost in the mix Home alone? “Farley was just starting out at the time,” Columbus said, and the director invited him to a Saturday morning audition. “This guy came to our first reading at 7 a.m. for the man who played Santa Claus in the movie. He wasn’t in particularly good shape. He had just returned from a night in Chicago.” The director continued, “We had to say, ‘Well, not this time.’ And then I got to know Farley really well over the years and we always talked about it.” “The first time we met was at that audition,” Columbus said.

Columbus also took part in one of the internet’s biggest debates: What did the McCallister parents do for a living to afford this beautiful house in Chicago?

“That’s when John and I talked about it and decided on the jobs,” Columbus said. Catherine O’Hara’s Kate McCallister “was a very successful fashion designer,” as the mannequins in the family basement suggest. As for John Heard’s Peter McCallister, he can’t say for sure. “The father, based on John Hughes’ own experience, could have worked in advertising, but I don’t remember what the father did.” However, he was able to rule out a profession that has been speculated on the internet to be the criminals may have lured Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) to the McCallister house in the first place: “No organized crime – although there was one. There was a lot of organized crime in Chicago back then.”

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