History Trivia / HomeAlone

* FriendshipOnTheSet: To this very day, Creator/MacaulayCulkin still calls Creator/CatherineOHara "Mom" and O'Hara was his guest when Culkin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in late 2023.

* FriendshipOnTheSet: To this very day, Creator/MacaulayCulkin still calls Creator/CatherineOHara "Mom".

* AdoredByTheNetwork: The first two movies are inevitably broadcast on TV in many countries during Christmas time.

* TheWikiRule: [[https://homealone.fandom.com/wiki/Home_Alone_Wiki Home Alone Wiki]].

* FranchiseZombie: ''Home Alone'' movies kept being produced long after Creator/ChrisColumbus, Creator/JohnHughes and Creator/MacaulayCulkin were involved, to negative critical and audience reception every time.

----

* FranchiseZombie: Movies for the series kept being produced long after Creator/ChrisColumbus, Creator/JohnHughes and Creator/MacaulayCulkin were involved, to negative critical and audience reception every time.

* FranchiseZombie: Movies for the series kept being produced long after Creator/ChrisColumbus, Creator/JohnHughes and Creator/MacaulayCulkin were involved, to negative critical and audience reception each time.

* FriendshipOnTheSet: To this very day, Creator/MacauleyCulkin still calls Creator/CatherineOHara "Mom".

* FranchiseZombie: ''Home Alone'' movies kept being produced long after Creator/ChrisColumbus, Creator/JohnHughes and Creator/MacaulayCulkin were involved, to negative critical and audience reception each time.
* TheWikiRule: [[https://homealone.fandom.com/wiki/Home_Alone_Wiki Here]].

[[folder:''Home Alone: The Holiday Heist'']]
* CaliforniaDoubling: The movie was not only shot in Manitoba but is the first one in the ''Home Alone'' series not to be set in Chicago (it is set in Maine).
* SequelGap: Released ten years after ''Home Alone 4''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Home Sweet Home Alone'']]
* ChannelHop: The first ''Home Alone'' film produced by Disney.
* DisownedAdaptation: When asked on his thoughts on the film during an interview, Creator/ChrisColumbus, who has been critical of the number of reboots and remakes Hollywood has made in general, expressed displeasure that Disney was trying to recapture the success of the original films, especially as they've remained so popular with audiences.
* TheOriginalDarrin: Devin Ratray from the first two films came back to play Buzz [=McCallister=] here. Buzz was [[TheOtherDarrin played by]] Gideon Jacobs in ''Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House''.
* SequelGap: Released nine years after ''Home Alone: The Holiday Heist''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Home Alone 2: Lost in New York'']]
* BeamMeUpScotty: "Merry Christmas, you filthy animal" has been accredited to Kevin or one of the Wet Bandits. The gangster Johnny from ''Angels with Even Filthier Souls'' actually says this line, although Kevin mouths it while escaping from the Plaza.
* CaliforniaDoubling: All the scenes with Kevin's family in Florida were shot in California, as were all the scenes at Kevin's uncle's house, while several more of the New York scenes were shot in Chicago.
* CastTheRunnerUp: Creator/AllySheedy was one of many candidates to play Kate. She makes a cameo as an airport clerk as a favour to Creator/JohnHughes.
* ColbertBump: The film featuring "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" by Music/JohnnyMathis led to increased requests to hear it on radio stations during the holidays.
* {{Defictionalization}}: The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talkboy Talkboy]] from ''Lost in New York'' was originally conceived as a non-working prop for the film; one letter-writing campaign from 1990s kids later, and it was Defictionalized by Tiger Electronics. It sold well enough that several variants were created, such as a [[PinkProductPloy pink-and-purple]] version called the [[DistaffCounterpart Talkgirl]].
* DeletedScene: A deleted scene featured Kevin having a similar aftershave scene in the Plaza like in the original. Creator/ChrisColumbus cut the scene for two reasons. The film was already two hours long, and he was afraid that people would accuse this film of being a remake rather than a sequel. The scene made it to the novelization.
* DyeingForYourArt:
** Joe Pesci had a rather thick head of hair at the time that had to be shaved bald.
** Devin Ratray likewise had let his hair grow to shoulder length between films, and it had to be buzzed to the same length as before.
* EditedForSyndication:
** Most network broadcasts since 2001 cut out the scene where Kevin visits the World Trade Center's observation deck. [=VH1=] retained it in a July 2021 airing, however.
** When [[Creator/{{Freeform}} ABC Family / Freeform]] airs the movie, the following traps from Uncle Rob's house are cut for commercial time (or to shorten the violence):
*** Marv getting hit with the second, third and fourth bricks.
*** Marv's battle with the staple gun.
*** Marv being electrocuted by the sink.
*** The tool chest squashing Harry and Marv.
** Since at least 2014, Canada's [[Creator/{{CBC}} CBC Television]] has cut the scene featuring UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump's [[TheCameo cameo]] where Kevin asks Trump where the hotel desk is. Despite this happening about a year before he announced his presidential bid, that didn't stop viewers (particularly Trump's own supporters) from [[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-from-home-alone-2/ alleging political motivations five years after the fact]], [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200101020649/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1210350571452022784 including (not surprisingly) Trump himself]], who blamed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who wasn't even prime minister at the time) for the edits! Freeform and [=VH1=] have retained the Trump cameo.
** Freeform has a new cut as of 2021 that restores the edited out traps at Uncle Rob's house. However, the scenes were the families rush to leave the house and Kevin getting separated the airport, as well as Kevin exploring New York City, are butchered. Also, the part where Kevin sets the traps up is cut.
* MissingTrailerScene: The trailer showed one of Kevin's traps involving a bunch of tools falling on Harry. The trailer has Harry NoSell most of the tools (with only a change in expression to show for it), only for a massive wrench to knock him down; in the movie, Harry collapses when the first set of tools fall on him, with the wrench falling as a mere punctuation mark on the scene.
* TheOtherDarrin: Maureen Elisabeth Shay replaces Angela Goethals as Linnie [=McCallister=].
* RealLifeRelative: The hotel operator, with whom Kevin makes a reservation pretending to be his father, is played by Creator/ChrisColumbus's wife, Monica Devereux, while his daughter is the little girl in the toy store.
* TechnologyMarchesOn: Kevin would have discovered Uncle Rob being out of the country much sooner by reaching him or his townhouse from a cell phone.
* WagTheDirector: The reason UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump [[https://people.com/movies/home-alone-2-director-says-donald-trump-bullied-his-way-into-the-movie/ has a cameo]] is because Creator/ChrisColumbus wanted to film in The Plaza Hotel's actual lobby. Trump, the hotel's owner at the time, only agreed if he could appear in the film. Columbus was considering editing out Trump's scene, but eventually left it in after test audiences responded positively to it.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Creator/JohnHughes originally wrote Kevin to ''have a gun'', but was convinced to change it to something that could be taken onto a flight, which eventually resulted in the famous Talkboy.
** It was originally scripted that Kevin was going to rain more paint cans down the stairs.
** At one point, Creator/JohnCandy was going to make a cameo.
** One trap not used in the final version of the film but used in the novelization (in place of the electric sink scene) featured Kevin putting superglue on a piece of cloth that Marv would try to use to clean his face, and when it naturally got stuck, he yanked it off so hard that he also pulled his beard off in the process.
* WorkingTitle: ''Alone Again''.

[[folder:''Home Alone 3'']]
* BillingDisplacement: When Creator/ABCFamily (now Freeform) showed ''Home Alone 3'', they advertised it like Creator/ScarlettJohansson was the star, despite the fact that she was only a minor character in the film and had about 5 to 10 minutes of screen time. To quote one of the trailers, "Scarlett Johansson is taking on the bad guys."
* BoxOfficeBomb: Budget, $32 million. Box office, $30,882,515 (domestic), [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff $79,082,515 (worldwide)]].
* BTeamSequel: Creator/ChrisColumbus didn't return as director, as he didn't want to work with a new cast. Music/JohnWilliams didn't provide the score either.
* CreatorKiller: While Creator/JohnHughes had a few more screenwriting credits under his belt after this film (and even then mostly under a pseudonym), its poor reception effectively marked the end of his producing career. His only other credit as a producer came on the following year's ''Reach the Rock'', which actually did get some halfway decent reviews, but failed to earn a wide release.
* TheDanza: Creator/AlexDLinz as Alex Pruitt.
* FranchiseKiller: The last film in the franchise to be theatrically released before the next two films were released on television and DVD.
* OldShame: While she doesn't appear to be really deeply regretful about the movie, Creator/ScarlettJohansson is aware that it's not the most popular ''Home Alone'', having conceded in an interview in ''Series/LateNight with Creator/SethMeyers'' that she was really surprised that, when she showed the film to her daughter, she was really into it, admitting that she though that "the plot is a little thin".
* RefittedForSequel: The dumbbell trap and the lawnmower trap were both originally in the opening scene of the ''Home Alone 2'' novelization as part of a shared nightmare Harry and Marv are having in prison.
* SequelGap: This came out five years after the second film.
* TechnologyMarchesOn: Phone technology has come a long way since 1997. Alex would have had much better luck getting the spies arrested with a smartphone, being able to provide the police with pictures of the suspects and their getaway car. Some 911 call centers can even allow dispatchers to receive pictures from smartphones.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** In the commentary for the first film, Creator/ChrisColumbus said that he had planned for the third film to be shot right after the second film, and it would have starred Macaulay Culkin as a teenaged version of Kevin; the idea was scrapped because by then, Macaulay Culkin had already discontinued acting.
** According to AMC's ''Story Notes'', Creator/JoePesci once said that his idea for a third film would be Kevin lost in Hawaii, or a beach resort.
** When Macaulay Culkin declined to reprise his role as Kevin, Creator/JohnHughes briefly considered writing the screenplay with Harry and Marv targeting Kevin's cousin Fuller, who would be the main character, with Gerry Bamman and Terrie Snell reprising their roles and Fuller's parents Frank and Leslie, respectively, who go on vacation and leave Fuller home alone, to defend himself against Marv and Harry. Then, when Pesci and Stern refused to reprise their roles because they wanted to pursue other projects, Hughes to changed the villains into two former partners-in-crime to Marv and Harry, but when Kieran felt he couldn't follow in his brother's footsteps as the lead, and other cast members of the first two films declined to have any involvement with the sequel, Hughes decided to write an entirely different screenplay with no characters from the first two films.

[[folder:''Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House'']]
* CaliforniaDoubling: The movie wasn't shot in America at all - this one was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa.
* CreatorKiller: The scathing reception to the film made this the final film director Rod Daniel did before his death in 2016.
* TheOtherDarrin: All of the returning characters are played by different actors. Creator/DanielStern, in particular, refused to go near the script, so Marv is played by French Stewart, and he's also dressed like Harry, for some reason.
* SequelGap: Came out five years after ''3'', and ten years after ''2'', which it's (supposedly) following up.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** If the film was successful? We would've had a TV series about it on ABC Family. Within the film, Kevin's parents didn't get back together in an earlier script. The ending was rewritten in case they ended up making the show.
** The earlier script also had Kevin's mother dating a new partner, a police officer who it turned out at the end was Marv's younger brother, and the polar opposite of Marv himself, being the WhiteSheep of the family. The final script changed this to Natalie's housemaid turning out to be Marv's mother, and her being, if anything, even ''worse'' than Marv himself.
** Daniel Stern refused to reprise his role as Marv in the fourth film, saying it was "An insult, total garbage."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Home Alone: The Holiday Heist'']]
* CaliforniaDoubling: The movie was not only shot in Manitoba but is the first one in the ''Home Alone'' series not to be set in Chicago (it is set in Maine).
* SequelGap: Released ten years after ''Home Alone 4''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Home Sweet Home Alone'']]
* ChannelHop: The first ''Home Alone'' film produced by Disney.
* DisownedAdaptation: When asked on his thoughts on the film during an interview, Creator/ChrisColumbus, who has been critical of the number of reboots and remakes Hollywood has made in general, expressed displeasure that Disney was trying to recapture the success of the original films, especially as they've remained so popular with audiences.
* TheOriginalDarrin: Devin Ratray from the first two films came back to play Buzz [=McCallister=] here. Buzz was [[TheOtherDarrin played by]] Gideon Jacobs in ''Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House''.
* SequelGap: Released nine years after ''Home Alone: The Holiday Heist''.
[[/folder]]

!!In General

!!Movie-specific Trivia

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:''Home Alone'']]
* ActorInspiredElement: Creator/MacaulayCulkin drew the map that Kevin uses to set up the traps.
* AdoredByTheNetwork:
** Any time a network owns the rights to the first two movies, expect it to give both special treatment. The rights have bounced from Creator/{{HBO}} to Turner-owned networks to [[Creator/{{Freeform}} ABC Family / Freeform]] then back (and forth) to HBO to Creator/{{Starz}} and then back to Freeform.
** The movie (and its sequel) are inevitably broadcast on TV in many countries during Christmas time.
* AuthorPhobia: Creator/ChrisColumbus' biggest fear as a kid was burglars. It's part of why he wanted to make this movie.
* AwesomeDearBoy: Why Music/JohnWilliams did the score. FOX passed it along to Williams when looking for a composer, but the crew felt they didn't have a shot to nab the biggest composer in movies to score their moderately-budgeted holiday movie. Williams loved the rough cut of the movie and agreed to do the score, while offering him an opportunity to go outside his usual fare with a more Christmas-tinged soundtrack.
* CaliforniaDoubling: O'Hare International Airport represents itself as well as Charles de Gaulle Airport.
* CastTheRunnerUp:
** Jeffrey Wiseman, who plays neighbor boy Mitch Murphy, originally auditioned to play Kevin [=McCallister=].
** Ralph Foody and Michael Guido were originally cast in the opposite roles of Snakes and Johnny respectively, but Foody was recovering from knee surgery at the time of the shoot and was unable to perform the fall to the floor, so the roles were swapped. Guido often joked that this swap meant he was one of the few actors who was unable to return for the sequel due to his character being dead.
* ChannelHop: The film was initially a Creator/WarnerBros production until the film went over budget, resulting in Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox taking over production.
* ColbertBump: The Drifters' version of "White Christmas" was featured in the first movie and has enjoyed greater prominence than its original release in 1954.
* CompletelyDifferentTitle: Multiple:
** In Latin America, the Spanish countries got "My Poor Little Angel" and Brazil "They Forgot Me" (the latter admittely works, even in the sequel where [[ArtifactTitle Kevin's not at home]]).
** France and Italy went for a literal synopsis, "Mom, I Missed the Plane".
** In Hungarian, it's "Tremble, Burglars!"
* CreatorBacklash:
** Creator/ChrisColumbus isn't fond of the booby trap where Harry gets covered in feathers, feeling it was "too soft" compared to the others.
** According to Columbus, Creator/JohnCandy was bitter about being paid scale by the studio, especially after the film became a smash hit.
* CreatorChosenCasting:
** Creator/JohnHughes always wanted Creator/MacaulayCulkin to star because of his experience while shooting ''Film/UncleBuck''.
** After securing Culkin, Creator/JoePesci and Creator/DanielStern, Creator/ChrisColumbus felt confident enough to cast people who were his heroes growing up, like Creator/CatherineOHara, after seeing her work on ''Series/{{SCTV}}'' and Creator/JohnHeard because he was a fan of ''Cutter's Way''.
* TheDanza: Creator/CatherineOHara as Kate [=McCallister=] in this film and the second.
* DawsonCasting: Minor example, but Kevin is 8 in the first film and 10 in the second, while Creator/MacaulayCulkin was actually 10 while making the first and 12 while filming the second.
* DeletedScene: See 'em [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anzWHQYhS8s here]].
* DoingItForTheArt: Multiple:
** Creator/DanielStern was so committed to the role of Marv, and to the concept of Marv and Harry being the Wet Bandits, that in fact, a number of Marv's antics (sticking snowglobes to the dashboard with gum, stepping on and walking across glass ornaments, trying to pry open the back door with a crowbar before giving up and just opening it, the stupid look on his face before getting hit with a flying paint can, the "Why the hell are you dressed like a chicken?" line he says when he sees Harry covered in feathers) were ad-libbed by Stern. There's also the fact that, when Macaulay Culkin did a video in 2015 reprising his role as Kevin that parodied the fans' AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that the traumas Kevin suffered through the course of the films turned him into a violent sociopath, Stern quickly made an answer video in-character as Marv.
** Creator/JohnCandy appeared in the film for scale pay.
** While filming the ''Angels with Filthy Souls'' clip, Creator/ChrisColumbus actually went to the effort of obtaining a Tommy gun used by Creator/EdwardGRobinson in the film ''G-Men'', and insisted on shooting the scene using 1940s-era camerawork techniques.
* DuelingMovies: With Creator/{{Disney}}'s ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'', which opened the same day and had Creator/JohnCandy in it just like ''Home Alone''. ''Home Alone'' prevailed, leading Disney chief Jeffrey Katzenberg to shut down his studio's marketing campaign and blowing up their attempt to continue the ''Rescuers'' franchise (though both films did well on VHS later).
** The film was predated a year earlier with ''Film/DialCodeSantaClaus'', a horror film with a similar premise (a young boy rigs his house with traps to ward off an intruder during Christmas).
* EnforcedMethodActing: Daniel Stern ''wasn't'' acting when Macaulay Culkin put a tarantula on his face. The spider was real, and Stern's terrified reaction is genuine. He didn't actually scream, though. It was edited in because it would have scared the spider.
* FollowTheLeader: The remake of ''Film/MiracleOnThirtyFourthStreet'' was greenlit especially after the success of this, with John Hughes writing too. The protagonist was even going to be a boy, after Kevin's influence.
* IAmNotSpock: Creator/MacaulayCulkin is now forever associated with this role. In the DVDCommentary, he acknowledged it as both a blessing and a curse.
* InspirationForTheWork: The conception arose from a personal experience of Creator/JohnHughes. Imagining that children are naturally most scared of robbers, Hughes also worked that aspect into the plot of the film.
-->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?"
* LoopingLines: Creator/DanielStern was required to have a live tarantula on his face when the prop one wasn't working. Because Stern didn't want to frighten or harm the tarantula while it was on his face, the legendary scream coming from his mouth was actually Stern miming, and an off-set recording of Stern screaming was edited over the top.
* MethodActing: Creator/JoePesci deliberately avoided Creator/MacaulayCulkin on-set, because he wanted Culkin to think he was mean.
* MissingTrailerScene: The trailer featured deleted and alternated scenes: a TV anchorman warns viewers to be on the lookout for the Wet Bandits. In the supermarket scene, the manager of the supermarket stands behind the check out girl and asks Kevin the questions check out girl asks him in the theatrical cut, and there's additional dialogue between Harry and Marv just before they go to Kevin's house, during which Marv says "Kids are stupid. I know I was", to which Harry replies "You still are, Marv."
* OneTakeWonder: Daniel Stern agreed for a live tarantula to be put on his face for one take only because the prop one wasn't working.
* OrphanedReference: Marv claiming the voices he heard in the [=McCallister=] house that were actually Kevin playing ''Angels with Filthy Souls'' sounded familiar. This was the set up for a BrickJoke in a planned post-credits scene. [[spoiler:Harry and Marv would be watching the film in prison and it was only then they would finally put two and two together.]]
* PlayingAgainstType: Devin Ratray had mostly just played nerds beforehand, so he relished getting to go against type as the BigBrotherBully Buzz.
* PopCultureUrbanLegends: A popular legend among fans is that the film was originally written to have Uncle Frank be the real mastermind behind Harry and Marv robbing the [=McCallister=] house and that the fact he pays for the airfare to Paris is an OrphanedReference to the fact he wanted everyone out of the way. This was actually [[https://www.cbr.com/home-alone-uncle-frank-villain/ a theory proposed by a fan]] of the film and has never been confirmed by either John Hughes or Chris Columbus.
* RealLifeRelative:
** Kevin's younger cousin Fuller is Creator/MacaulayCulkin's little brother [[Creator/KieranCulkin Kieran]].
** The elf that Kevin meets before talking to Fake Santa was the then-wife of cinematographer Julio Macat.
** Several of Creator/ChrisColumbus' family members made cameos in the film: His mother-in-law and his daughter Eleanor Columbus were passengers on the plane. His wife Monica Devereux-Columbus was a stewardess, and his father-in-law played the police officer who says the line "tell them to count their kids again."
** The movie's producer Mark Radcliffe's twin daughters Porscha and Brittany play Kevin's cousins [[DeletedRole in a few scenes]].
* ReferencedBy: ''Film/HomeAlone'' is referenced by ''Film/BicentennialMan'' (another of Creator/ChrisColumbus's films) when Miss says that Kate [=McCalister=]'s family has an [=NDR114=] in their household.
* ShootTheMoney: You'd be amazed to discover that the movie had an incredibly small budget of only $18 million. A number of the visual effects (such as the BB striking Marv in the face) were literally done by a teenager in his parents' basement for only a couple of hundred dollars. Creator/JohnCandy's parts were all filmed at once, nonstop, for 23 hours, because that's all the time the producers could afford to have him on the set. The furnace in the basement was achieved by crewmembers hiding behind it with wire and flashlights. Creator/ChrisColumbus and Macaulay Culkin have both joked that production on this movie was akin to attending "Film School 101". Many critics even agree that had this movie been made a decade or two earlier, it would pretty much have been a BMovie.
* SimilarlyNamedWorks: "Home Alone" is also the name of an unrelated public service video that shows viewers what to do if they are at home by themselves (i.e., if someone calls on the phone, don't say you're home alone, etc). More recently, it is the title of an Investigation Discovery [[DarkerAndEdgier true crime series]] about residents being trapped and/or held hostage by crooks in their own homes. Several episodes even take place during Christmas!
* SleeperHit: No one expected the film to do as well as it did. In fact, Fox initially distributed it to the minimum number of theaters required for it to be considered a wide release. It became one of the highest grossing films of all time, and it is still in the top fifty when adjusted for inflation.
* StarMakingRole: For Macaulay Culkin. He became a household name following its success.
* TechnologyMarchesOn:
** Both the DVDCommentary and ''Website/CollegeHumor'' have joked that, had the first two movies been made today, they would either rely on [[CellPhonesAreUseless everyone's cell phone being rendered useless]] or would only last 20 minutes each.
** The first two movies' packing rushes are caused by the alarm clock not going off (due to a power outage in the first and Peter unplugging it in the second). Nowadays, the aforementioned cellphones would've likely been used for alarm clocks, and would be able to last all night without being plugged in provided that they have some charge.
** Out of all the valuables in the [=McCallister=] house coveted by the Wet Bandits, Harry mentions that the house likely contains multiple [=VCRs=].
** During the HomeAloneAntics of the climax, Marv worries that Kevin will be calling the police from his treehouse. Harry incredulously points out that this is impossible. Not so strange in a time when cell phones are practically ubiquitous.
** [[https://youtu.be/-lfHXKbsMLE A 2018 Google commercial]] with [[AdamWesting Macaulay Culkin playing Kevin again]] would lampshade how different the movie would be if it were made today.
* ThrowItIn:
** Catherine O'Hara forgot her lines in the airplane scene where she realized that they left Kevin [[TitleDrop home alone]]. The [[SayMyName iconic shouting of Kevin's name]] was her attempt to salvage the take. They not only ended up using the take, but the "Kevin!" shout became forever linked to the film series.
** The conversation with the checkout lady and Kevin in the first was improvised. The director didn't say 'Cut', so the actress kept asking him questions and Culkin went along with it.
** Gus Polinsky's story about he and his wife leaving their kid at a funeral parlor all day long was completely ad-libbed by Creator/JohnCandy; matter of fact, many of the moments between he and Catherine O'Hara saw a lot of ad-libbing, as both are ''Series/{{SCTV}}'' alumni.
** Ken Campbell, who played Santa, couldn't drive stick and practiced really hard. On the first take, he successfully drove the car away but forgot to turn on the lights, so they had him redo it. The second time, the car stalled and he swore (He did ''not'' say "Son of a"; they put that in in post). They thought it was so hilarious that they left it in.
** The line, "You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more?" was improvised.
** Marv's lines, "Why the hell are you dressed like a chicken", and, "Maybe he committed suicide", were improvised by Daniel Stern.
** Before [[spoiler:[[BigDamnHeroes Old Man Marley saves Kevin from Harry and Marv]]]], Creator/JoePesci had actually bit one of Macaulay Culkin's fingers, leaving a scar.
* {{Typecasting}}: Be honest, when have you not seen Creator/JoePesci play a criminal?
* TroubledProduction:
** Warner Brothers had originally greenlighted the film on the assurance it could be made for no more than $10 million. Very early on the producers realized they had underestimated how much it was going to cost, and worrying that Warner would balk at making the film for that much money,[[note]]Since it had some other very expensive holiday releases in the pipeline.[[/note]] Creator/JohnHughes secretly took a meeting with Fox asking if they would be willing to take it over if it came to that and, uh, "accidentally" left a copy of the script behind (Fox legally wouldn't have been allowed to see it at that time)
** The tight budget had other early effects. Upon being informed that the shooting schedule was being extended from six weeks to eight, Creator/DanielStern asked if he could thus expect to be paid more. He was told no, the budget was too tight, and quit. But after three days of rehearsals with his replacement, Daniel Roebuck, didn't yield the same chemistry he had had with Pesci, Stern was brought back, presumably for more money.
** That was just one of the many cost increases that was driving up the budget and straining relations with Warner. The studio had conceded them an additional $3 million, but that still wouldn't be enough ... the producers had prepared a long memo explaining how there was no way they could make this film the way they wanted to, the way they told the studio they could, for anything less than $17.5 million. After a final offer of $14 million was rejected, Warner [[GodzillaThreshold shut down production]]. Within 20 minutes, however, filmmaking resumed as Hughes made his call to Fox, which stepped right in to the breach.
** The daily filming schedule created issues at both ends.
*** Morning unit call was 7 a.m. This greatly bothered Creator/JoePesci, who already had some complaints about his character's dialogue being ridiculous. He finally took one of the assistant directors aside[[note]]Rather roughly, apparently.[[/note]] and explained that he would be in a much better frame of mind shooting his scenes ''if'' he could get in nine holes of golf in the morning. Accordingly, the unit calls were pushed back to 9 a.m.
*** Due to Creator/MacaulayCulkin's age, he could not work any later than 10 p.m., making it very difficult to schedule and shoot the many nighttime scenes in the film.
** One last scheduling issue made things tight. Creator/JohnCandy could only work for one day, so ''all'' his scenes were done in a 23-hour marathon session. He did them all for absolute rock bottom scale and got paid a little over $400 ...less even than the actor who played the pizza delivery guy.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Creator/RobertDeNiro, Creator/DannyDeVito, Creator/BobHoskins, and Creator/JonLovitz[[note]]Who turned down auditioning because he wasn't interested in doing a family film.[[/note]] were originally approached for the role of Harry Lime before Creator/JoePesci was cast.
*** Creator/RowanAtkinson, Creator/AlanRickman, Creator/DudleyMoore, and Music/PhilCollins also auditioned for the part of Harry Lime before the casting of Pesci.
** Creator/MichaelKeaton, Creator/ChristopherLloyd, Creator/JeremyIrons, and Creator/MichaelRichards were considered for Marv Merchants before the casting of Creator/DanielStern.
** Creator/KirstieAlley was the first choice for the role of Kate [=McCallister=] before Creator/CatherineOHara was cast. However, Alley turned down the offer due to scheduling conflicts with ''[[Film/LookWhosTalking Look Who's Talking Too]]''. Other candidates included Creator/StockardChanning, Creator/GlennClose, Creator/JamieLeeCurtis, Creator/GeenaDavis, Creator/LauraDern, Creator/CarrieFisher, Creator/JodieFoster, Creator/JenniferGrey, Creator/LindaHamilton, Music/{{Madonna}}, Creator/DarylHannah, Creator/HollyHunter, Creator/HelenHunt, Creator/AnjelicaHuston, Creator/DianeKeaton, Creator/JessicaLange, Music/BetteMidler, Creator/MichellePfeiffer, Creator/AnniePotts, Creator/AllySheedy, Creator/SharonStone, Creator/SigourneyWeaver and Creator/DebraWinger.
** Creator/TimAllen, Creator/DanAykroyd, Creator/JamesBelushi, Creator/ChevyChase, Creator/KevinCostner, Creator/MichaelDouglas, Creator/HarrisonFord, Creator/MelGibson, Creator/JohnGoodman, Creator/CharlesGrodin, Creator/TomHanks, Creator/ChristopherLloyd, Creator/SteveMartin, Creator/RickMoranis, Creator/BillMurray, Creator/JackNicholson, Creator/SeanPenn, Creator/DennisQuaid, Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, Creator/MartinSheen, Creator/SylvesterStallone, Creator/AlanThicke, Creator/JohnTravolta, Creator/RobinWilliams and Creator/BruceWillis were considered for Peter [=McCallister=].
** Creator/KelseyGrammer was considered for the part of Uncle Frank before the casting of [[Film/TheSecretOfMySuccess Gerry Bamman]].
** Creator/ChrisFarley, then a member of Creator/TheSecondCity company in Chicago, auditioned to play the Santa Claus Kevin meets. Chris Columbus claims he didn't have a great audition because [[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/home-alone-interview-macaulay-culkin-b1721771.html it was in the early morning and he was up late partying.]]
** The film was originally set up at [[Creator/WarnerBros Warner Brothers]], with the promise that the film would be financed for $14 million. When it turned out they would need $18 million to finish the film, Warner Bros. temporarily shut down production and placed the movie into turnaround until [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyStudios 20th Century Fox]] acquired the project.
** Creator/ChrisColumbus only became the film's director because he quit the production of ''Film/NationalLampoonsChristmasVacation'' after clashing with Creator/ChevyChase. Creator/JohnHughes, who was also the writer and a producer of that film, sent him the script for ''Home Alone'' so he would still have a job.
** During the [[https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/12/home-alone-gangster-movie filming of "Angels with Filthy Souls"]], Michael Guido was originally cast as the sleeve-gartered Johnny, and Ralph Foody as the doomed lackey "Snakes". Columbus had to swap the character roles because Foody had recently undergone knee surgery and was unable to keel over and "die" for the murder scene.
** According to Creator/ChrisColumbus, and early promotion posters, the original music score was to be composed by Bruce Broughton, who ultimately got caught up with scoring ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'', and was unavailable to score this film.
** Columbus envisioned a scene in which the furnace came to life, gets up on all fours and chases Kevin to the stairs. The scene would have cost over a million dollars, so it was trimmed down to the furnace simply lighting up, and groaning Kevin's name.
** The original script ended with a short scene, after the credits, in which Harry and Marv watch "Angels with Filthy Souls" on TV in prison, surrounded by other offenders.
** The first draft has Kevin have a nightmare where his parents, in a creepily cheery tone, talk to him through the TV about being wherever he wished him away to and tell him not to blame himself for what happened before everything in the house coming alive and chasing and attacking Kevin before he wakes up screaming. This scene got as far as being storyboarded before being cut due to being too expensive.
** Kevin was originally written to be 6 in the first draft before being aged up to 7 in a few later drafts but is 8 in the final version.
* WordOfSaintPaul: When Devin Ratray was asked what happened to Buzz later in life, he said he probably went to prison. This would wind up being contradicted by ''Home Sweet Home Alone'' which shows he became a police officer.
[[/folder]]

* ImageSource:
** ShowWithinAShow

* ImageSource:
** ProtectThisHouse

* IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine: Roberts Blossom (Old Man Marley) and Larry Hankin (Sgt. Balzak) were both co-stars in the film ''Film/EscapeFromAlcatraz'', playing inmates Doc and Charley Butts.