Macaulay Culkin and Chris Columbus Reunite to Discuss 35 Years of "Home Alone" and How They'd Approach a New Sequel

A jam-packed, highly enthusiastic audience filled the David Geffen Theater at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles on Saturday for a special 35th anniversary screening of Home Alone. What made this event so notable were its guests, with director Chris Columbus and the film's star, Macaulay Culkin, appearing together for a Q&A, something that has not occurred at any previous retrospective screenings of the film.

Prior to the film being shown, Columbus and Culkin sat down with moderator R.J. Reith-Miller to discuss the production of the John Hughes-written Home Alone, its memorable moments, and the film turning into both a massive hit upon its release in 1990 and, as time went on, a beloved holiday classic - plus they touched upon the only one of the film's multiple sequels the duo returned for, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. And, yes, they addressed the question of how they might approach doing a new Home Alone film, should they ever reunite for another Kevin McCallister story.

Columbus recalled how he ended up directing Home Alone, which he's previously recounted only came to be after he was first going to direct a different John Hughes-scripted holiday film, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, before coming into conflict with that film's star, the notoriously difficult Chevy Chase. As Columbus explained, he assumed his huge decision to quit Christmas Vacation would completely torpedo his burgeoning directorial career, given he was already coming off a financial bomb as his last film (1988's Heartbreak Hotel) and felt he'd been lucky to have been given another shot in the first place.

Said Columbus, "It was so hard, because I had to call John Hughes and say, 'I don't get along with Chevy Chase. I don't think I can make a movie with him.' And so I had to back out. And I thought, 'I'm not going to direct again.' But then [Hughes] sent me Home Alone. And I thought, 'Well, this guy likes something about my work.' So that's how it all started. I fell in love with the script, and we just started to try to make the movie."

Hughes always hoped Culkin would star in Home Alone, having written the script with him in mind thanks to how much Culkin impressed the filmmaker when they made the John Candy-led comedy Uncle Buck together, but Columbus still wanted to audition other child actors to see if he felt someone else was the best fit. Said Columbus, "I saw about 300 other kids before we met, and then no one was great. [Mac and I] met at my New York apartment, and he was amazing. And I thought 'He's in the movie."

Home Alone was originally going to be produced by Warner Bros., but that studio pulled the plug just a couple of weeks before production was slated to begin thanks to a battle over the budget, with Columbus feeling they needed $19 million to make the film and WB not willing to go higher than $18 million. All of this of course is ironic looking back, and no doubt a big regret for Warner Bros., given Home Alone's staggering success, with the film making nearly $500 million in theaters alone - the third highest grossing movie ever at the time of its release, after only E.T. and Star Wars.

Columbus thanked Joe Roth, who was then the chairman 20th Century Fox, for seeing the potential in the movie, coming to its rescue a few days later to greenlight it once again. Roth also was crucial when it came to locking in the two great veteran actors playing the thieves Kevin fends off, Harry and Marv (AKA the Wet Bandits), with Columbus explaining, "They always, in my head, were Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, but we couldn't afford both of them. We had Joe Pesci, so I was forced to cast someone else. We did a screen test with the other actor and Joe Pesci and it was just not good. There was no chemistry and it was not funny, which is the most important thing. I had to call Joe Roth, and I said, 'I need Dan Stern in this movie.' And Joe stepped up to the plate and Dan Stern was in the movie. And the first wardrobe test we did with the two guys, they were amazing [together]."

Though Home Alone was Culkin's first project as the lead, he said he initially didn't think of it as anything particularly different from the other films he'd worked on as a successful child actor and certainly didn't have a reason to think it would be the mega-hit it became. As he put it, "It was kind of just another gig. I was constantly booking at the time and I don't think we ever thought we'd be sitting here 35 years later." However, he recalled on one of the final day's of making the movie "The prop guy was like, 'Imagine if they make another one when he left him behind again!' Like, what are the odds?"

Culkin said he did feel playing Kevin he got to display more of his own personality than in other roles up to that point, remarking "I think there was a little bit of just letting the kid off the leash. It was very much me. I was always kind of a wise guy, and I was always kind of just sharp and stuff like that. I was just being a goofy kid."

As for the famous moment where Culkin, as Kevin, puts aftershave on his face, holds his hands to his face and screams, Culkin recalled, "I remember during rehearsals, we did the thing, and I was big fan of Looney Tunes and when Wile E. Coyote will walk off the edge and he doesn't fall down till he looks down, that kind of thing," which inspired the long pause he takes with his hands on his cheeks in that aftershave moment.

Columbus recalled how funny Culkin was performing this scene on set, though he chuckled about the shaky logic of it, adding "Aftershave doesn't really hurt. To this day, I don't understand why [he screams], because it does not hurt. Maybe it was some sort of acid or something! All I know is that when we screened [the movie] for the first time for a preview audience, until the end of the movie, it got the biggest laugh. And so it became the poster!"

The panelists both spoke about how terrifically funny the late John Candy was in his role in Home Alone as Gus, the polka musician who helps Kevin's mom, Kate (Catherine O'Hara), get home to her son. Said Columbus, "We had John for one day, and it was like a 27 hour shooting day -- 27 to 29 [hours], which you could never get away with today. He was there for 29 hours and was just improvising. He would do a scripted take [first]. It was sort of how I ended up working with Robin Williams [on Mrs. Doubtfire]. We had a deal. We'd do two or three scripted takes, and then we'll play. And John loved to play, and so he improvised for the entire time in the van."

Columbus remarked that he felt one crucial mistake the later Home Alone sequels made, after the first two entries, was that the big stunts in those other films often involved putting the performers on wires for the falls and other trademark moments of comedic violence. This was in contrast to the first two movies, where it was all simply the stunt performers going to amazing -- and sometimes amazingly scary -- lengths on their own to portray the mayhem caused by Kevin. Columbus felt that when wires are involved, rather than looking completely natural, "The actors tend to float for [a few] milliseconds, and the audience is aware of it. So subconsciously, they're not as funny as these guys who did the stunts on this movie."

Columbus said the key to how funny the Home Alone stunts appear on screen was how extreme they were and, interestingly, how unfunny they were on set because of how brutal and legitimately dangerous they could appear in person. As he put it, "Every time they did a stunt, it was not funny. We'd watch it and we thought they were dead! I would say 'Cut' and we'd walk over and ask 'Are you okay?!' 'Yeah, let's do it again!' And then we watched video playback, and it was hilarious."

He then recalled a particularly scary stunt on Home Alone 2 "where Joe Pesci's double fell on top of a car and we were convinced it was over." Culkin also remembered that moment well, recalling, "We're running out of the toy store and they're chasing me. They were right behind me, and then just 'Boom!' Troy [Brown], who was Joe Pesci's stunt double, he got hit by that taxi, and it cracked the windshield. I turned around and it was terrible. And then he got up, and he was like, 'Alright, let's do it again!'

There are a lot of unfortunate stories about the paths taken by former child stars, who have so much to navigate in terms of the perils of sudden money and fame at such a young age. Culkin acknowledged that the unbelievable success of Home Alone did quickly change things for him, noting that when the film opened "I was shooting My Girl in Orlando. I used to hang out there and there'd be neighborhood kids and I played video games with them, I'd ride bikes with them... I was kind of just one of those kids. I happened to do movies, but it wasn't a big deal. And I remember Home Alone came out, and I was watching TV, and right next to it was the window, and I see there's a bunch of kids [outside]. They're running away, and it's like 'I know those guys! It's Jeff and Russ!' And I was like, 'Oh, it's different now. We're not the same anymore.'

Prior to that, he noted he might get recognized here and there for something like Uncle Buck, "But this was different. This was a world famous kind of thing. So yeah, it happened pretty starkly. It's hard because you don't necessarily have the actual or emotional vocabulary to kind of navigate those waters. But, listen, I'm here, so there you go." The crowd cheered for Culkin as he added "I survived!"

Inevitably, the question came up about whether Culkin and Columbus could imagine ever doing a new Home Alone movie about an adult Kevin. Culkin had recently discussed this subject, giving his own thoughts on a potential storyline, which Columbus playfully teased him about, calling Culkin's idea "fine." But for his part, Columbus said he felt, quite simply, "The only way to do a Home Alone sequel is you need Mac and you need Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. I always thought that those two guys would probably have been in prison for 30 years and are pretty pissed off at you. So I see it as some sort of revenge movie... It has to be the three of them." When Culkin noted Pesci is now 82 years old, and jokingly pondered if he'd up for still taking a pratfall, Columbus countered that the 83 year old Paul McCartney still sometimes takes falls during concerts and is typically okay afterwards, so hey, why not!

Culkin then elaborated on his own recent sequel ponderings, explaining, "I like the idea that maybe Kevin's older, that he's like a widower or something like that, and he's raising his kid and they don't really get along because Kevin's working all the time. It's almost like a Liar, Liar kind of thing; it's kind of a disconnect. There are two ways you can do it. One, he actually leaves the kid behind by mistake. So he calls up his mom, like, 'I'm so sorry, I get it now!' Or, I leave him behind on purpose."

Culkin said Kevin's thinking in that second scenario would be, "'That made me the man I am today.'" Except the tables would turn with Kevin because his son would then lock Kevin out of the house "And he's setting up traps and things like that. I think I see them coming because I'm the expert. That also explains why I don't call the police or locksmith. I'm embarrassed! My kid is beating me. This is my gig! I think pretty much the house would be kind of a metaphor for getting back to the kid's heart."

Of course whether or not Culkin ever plays Kevin again, people will continue to watch Home Alone. So why has the film endured for 35 years? Said Culkin, "I think what everyone relates to is that this kid, he's getting one over on everybody. He wins! He's beaten the bad guys. I think whether you're a kid or an adult, you all kind of relate to that." However, these days, he said, "Catherine's journey in this resonates more with me now than I'm a father, and seeing how desperately and how hard she's trying to get home."

Culkin added, "People ask me, all the time, 'Do you watch this movie your kids?' I go, 'Of course, this movie's awesome!' But I don't [really] watch the movie. I watch them. I watch their eyes, I listen to them laugh and things like that. And it makes me really proud to be a part of something like that. Now I can see it through their eyes." He addressed the audience, adding, "You guys were raised on it and now you guys are raising your kids on it, right? So now I'm raising my kids on it, so it means something completely different." Amusingly, Culkin said so far, his kids haven't realized it's their dad in the movie they love so much, and while he doesn't want to just tell them, he's excited for that realization to hit them.

As for Columbus, he praised his star for Home Alone's continued popularity, telling Culkin, "I think it's because you are so infinitely relatable to everybody who sees this movie. In terms of what happens when someone steps in front of a camera, you can't explain it. And people fell in love with Kevin. The weird thing about Home Alone is the reason I wanted to direct it because I just seen David Lean's Great Expectations, of all things, and the beginning of Great Expectations is told through a child's eyes - it's just the first 20 minutes. And I thought, 'If I do this movie, I want to tell it from Kevin's point of view, but I need someone who can carry the audience.' And you did it, and every kid who sees that movie relates to you, and that's why It's lasted so long, is because of you."

For more on Home Alone, check out our visit to the real life Little Nero's Pizza you can currently visit in Los Angeles as part of Disney+'s celebration of the 35th anniversary.