You confirm that you are talking about classic content when you just enter the words “Home Alone” in the Artificial Intelligence app and the image that comes up is Macaulay Culkin‘s quote from the poster for the film Home Alone.

John Hughes‘ film premiered in 1990, became a box office phenomenon, a franchise, and to this day is one of the most watched Christmas films every year-end. That’s right, it’s been 33 years leading the world’s preference, speaking to several generations, even though today there are many discussions about the film’s “jokes” being far too violent.

According to the Yahoo/YouGov survey, 34% of people interviewed first cited Home Alone as the film they watch during the holiday season, taking the lead from other traditional films such as A Christmas Story (33%) and A Charlie Brown Christmas (32%). The Top 5 is completed by Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (29%), and Elf (26%). Well, the classics of the past such as It’s a Wonderful Life, The Santa Clause (both with 24%), and Miracle on 34 Street (21%) are still synonymous with nostalgia, but lose a significant 10% compared to the most recent ones. The other surprise of the survey is that Die Hard closed the list with an unignorable 14% of fans. My Christmas Top 5 is usually different, we will review it soon.

But let’s go back to Home Alone, a film conceived by the pope of teen cinema from the 1980s and which, as he explained, was born from a quick thought when he was packing his bags to go on vacation with his family. “I was making a list of everything I didn’t want to forget. I thought, ‘Well, I better not forget my kids.’ So I thought, ‘What if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do?’” John Hughes said in an interview. Being the genius that he was, he immediately wrote an eight-page script, which was the basis of the script, and where he also explored the fear of thieves precisely during the period when the houses would be empty.

To convince the studios, despite all the prestige he already had, the director committed to making a “cheap” feature, costing less than 10 million dollars. Obviously, he couldn’t. Soon the forecast rose to 18 million, but it still got the green light. As he was busy, he did not personally direct the work, casting Chris Columbus, now not only associated with this franchise but with Harry Potter as well, who rewrote the script to insert some “more serious” touches and did not take credit for it.

The film established Macaulay Culkin, then a rising child actor, as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood (forever interfering in his professional as well as personal life). His cynicism and innocent face helped bring the right dimension to the role of Kevin, now irremediably linked to him. It is Kevin who is “left behind” when the large and noisy family gets into the car to go to the airport and mistakenly counts it as if he were together. Only in the air, in mid-flight, does his mother realize the mistake, a role where the brilliance of Catherine O’Hara, later awarded and known for Schitt’s Creek, was also essential.

The film’s antagonists are the thieves Harry and Marv, who choose Kevin’s house to break into, without knowing he is inside. The adventure of defending your territory starts to dominate the narrative, with some characters like Uncle Frank, a homeless man whom Kevin helps, giving the film a more Christmassy tone. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern starred in scenes considered hilarious with physical humor, now somewhat aggressive and almost torturous. Pesci was only cast when Robert De Niro turned down the role, as did Jon Lovitz. Do you know the perfection of destiny? That was the case, someone else wouldn’t do as well as him, although the team may disagree because, according to director of photography Julio Macat, it was “more difficult to work with Pesci than with Culkin”, due to the star’s bad mood and rudeness.

In any case, recorded in just over two months, Home Alone maintains an important signature of the works of John Hughes, being located in Illinois, near Chicago. The house used as a location became a tourist attraction and had already appeared in other films by the director: The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Sixteen Candles, among others, details that fans can always identify.

And if the production cost 18 million, it was a lottery hit. It grossed no less than almost 477 million dollars worldwide, earning its place as one of the highest-grossing films of all time, generating a (in comparison not so successful) franchise. The sixth film was released digitally on Disney+ in 2021, called Home Sweet Home Alone.

But the main proof of the quality of Home Alone is precisely that it’s remained in the lead for more than three decades. Today films are available on platforms, but even before they were the most rented, and the most purchased. The ‘shadow’ of success affected Macaulay forever, even though it made him a millionaire. Whatever the case, Kevin MacLallister will always be synonymous with Christmas for many of us, with or without bad guys lurking around.

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