There Was Supposed to Be a Major Bonus Scene in 'Home Alone'

The movie's writer, the venerable John Hughes, was on his way to Europe for the first time with his family and just happened to think,"What if one of the kids were left behind?" He jotted it down, and wrote the first draft of the movie's script in just nine days (!) after he got back home.

The producers wanted him to play Harry, one of the bumbling burglars, but he turned it down. It was Joe Pesci, De Niro's Goodfellas co-star, who accepted the gig in the end.

We still think the Saturday Night Live legend would have made a good fit, but apparently his audition wasn't up to snuff.

The role of Uncle Frank was written for him, but he turned it down. Gerry Bamman eventually got the job as the wily uncle.

The producers really couldn't afford it, but after snow covered the entire set the second day of shooting, they had no choice but to call in the snow machines for the remainder of the film's production.

The actor apparently wanted to ensure Culkin was actually afraid of him (and consequently, Harry).

The Beetlejuice and Schitt's Creek star didn't always deliver her dialogue to Macaulay Culkin due to restrictions on the working hours of child actors. "We’d shoot a scene with one of the kids; then, as late as one in the morning, we’d shoot my close-ups," she recalled. "They’d have a tennis ball on a stand, the height of the kid’s head, and the script supervisor would read the children’s lines."

Around 2012, the costars accidentally ran into each other for the first time in many years. "He went, 'Mommy!' and I was like, 'Baby!'" the actress told Andy Cohen. "And my husband, who usually is cool about these things, said, 'OK, get together. I'm getting a picture!'"

Angels with Filthy Souls was a mock short created specifically for the scene where Kevin is hiding from the pizza guy. A similar fake sequel appears in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

See the original post on Youtube

"The script called for Macaulay Culkin to put shaving lotion on and suddenly it burns his skin and he screams," director Chris Columbus told ET. "We didn't know it was going to be the universal image for Home Alone."

Kieran Culkin made his acting debut as Kevin's cousin, Fuller. They starred together again in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

The actor who played Marv first felt reluctant about performing the stunt, asking the crew to remove the spider's "stinger," to which he was told no, it would die. "I said, 'Yeah, but if you don't take it out, I'll die,'" he told the Hollywood Reporter. Luckily for Stern, tarantulas don't have ears, so he eventually agreed to perform the scream for take after take.

See the original post on Youtube

The magic of props saved his feet from a whole lotta pain.

Because he was used to more adult scripts, the actor had to catch himself using curse words around his young costar. Director Chris Columbus advised him to even say "fridge" instead of the "f" word on set.

As he explained, it's hard for him to watch it from an outside point of view. "When I'm watching it, I'm seeing like — I'm remembering that day on set," the actor told Ellen DeGeneres in 2018. "You know, like, how I was hiding my Pepsi behind the couch. I can't watch it the same way other people can."

In order to keep the child actor from seeing actual nudity, the crew taped the magazine completely shut.

The McAllister home is a real house located outside of Chicago in Winnetka, Illinois. What's more, the real owners continued to live there (mostly confined to the house's master suite) for the five months of filming.

And the graphics weren't too shabby for the early '90s.

See the original post on Youtube

John Hughes originally wanted Columbus to direct National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, but things turned south after a meeting with actor Chevy Chase. "I called John and said, 'There’s no way I can do this movie. I know I need to work, but I can’t do it with this guy,'" he told Chicago. Shortly after, he was sent the script for Home Alone instead.

"During one of the rehearsals, he bit me, and it broke the skin," Culkin recalled to Conan O'Brien. And he's still got the scar as a memento.

Pesci and Stern didn't endure as much abuse as Harry and Marv. According to supervising sound editor Michael Wilhoit, the crew replicated the sound of bodies hitting the ground using frozen roast beef. To make "flesh bubble and sizzle," they'd put a soldering iron onto chicken skin.

He also filmed his part of the movie in one day.

See the original post on Youtube

While producer John Hughes encouraged most of the actors to stick to the script, he made a special exception for his friend John Candy.

The scene was actually filmed at a school swimming pool located nearby.

The script originally included an additional post-credits moment where Harry and Marv watch Angels With Filthy Souls on TV in prison. When they then hear the movie dialogue that Kevin fooled them with, they then exchange looks.

Released in November 1990, Home Alone had a 12-week stint at number one. It also held the title of "top-grossing live-action comedy" for a whopping 27 years, too.

Home Alone's runaway success helped it accumulate more than $500,000,000 internationally—albeit under some different titles. According to cinematographer Julio Macat, the movie is called Mom, I Lost the Plane in Italy and in Argentina, it's Oh, the Poor Angel.