Home alone.
Looking back, we do not remember the existence of a (good) Christmas movie before it was released Home alone in 1990. How come someone hadn't thought of monetizing Christmas at the movies before?
Well, we lie. Yes, it had occurred to studios like Warner Bros. and screenwriters like John Hughes. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation , for example... although if we get exquisite that doesn't count because, who can stand Chevy Chase? Outraged you will be those who are thinking of gremlins , with a script by Chris Columbus, but terror and Christmas in the same equation as you will understand... well no. Hard to Kill ...Bruce Willis killing left and right? Bye.
If it hadn't been for the film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes (it's becoming clear who was running the blockbuster hit movies back then, right?) in 1990– and distributed by 20th Century Fox (Warner Bros. was slow and missed the opportunity)– nothing would be as we know it now.
Have you taken a look at streaming platforms lately? The content is infested by an absurd amount of christmas movies , one of those that will never go down in history (or the memory of the next day) but that we can't stop watching. Unknown actors, celebrities who return to the scene after disappearing for years, big names that are seen in projects that nothing goes with them... they all join the content of the ho ho ho and the reason for this is as basic as wanting to be part of the next Christmas hit that goes down in history. As it was at the time Home alone.
30 years ago and purely by chance. Nobody thought that the thing was going to get to what it is now. To what it was. With an initial budget of $14 million (Warner Bros. gave them ten and, by exceeding the figure, closed the door to its creators to put it on a platter to 20th Century Fox) the film came to collect, after six months at the box office, $285 million.
The mythical gluttonous scene at the Plaza Hotel in New York
The secret of the film's appeal is a host of factors that, together, exploded success . Without planning it and without thinking about it too well, everything is said. Macaulay Culkin he was an actor who went unnoticed by all those who did not see Uncle Buck with John Candy . Angelic gaze and mischievous personality, a duo of qualities impossible to miss... is there anyone who dislikes Macaulay Culkin? Well that. He alone lifts the whole movie although all the help he has to pull it off more than makes the movie even more interesting..
McCallister cousins, brothers and uncles.
Like his mother, Catherine Anne O'Hara –Delia Deetz in beetlejuice and currently part of the cast of Schitt's Creek –, Who forgets her son (twice!) During Christmas. She doesn't remember her existence and yet we can't help but identify with her character. just her and John Heard they could have been able to make a totally incredible fact true: that of an upper-middle-class family (hello bigwig?) that leaves her son, inadvertently, at home alone for Christmas. Little drama.
Joe Pesci is another name that shines brightly. The ace up the sleeve Scorsese here he eats his classic movie insults between grumbles and blows that, in fact, marked a before and after in the use of stunts at the cinema. According to the chapter dedicated to the film The Movies That Made Us , from Netflix (2019), all the doubles of the actors performed the scenes without special effects... or mattresses. Something unthinkable today.
Nor can we forget (how can we forget!) our favorite member of the family Succession , Kieran Culkin, aka Roman Roy. In the second part of the film, things got even higher with Rob Schneider Y Tim Curry in template. Well, how not? donald trump.
Donald Trump's cameo in 'Home Alone'
Revisiting the film in its 30th anniversary , it's the (now) vintage references that make us remember how simple and complicated life was in the 90s. Like the McCallisters' alarm clock unplugging causing them to wake up late and rush out of the house. Do you remember when the power went out at home and the clock set at a throbbing 12:00? What stress. They also parade old cans of Pepsi ... who drinks Pepsi at this stage? The walkmans that we never imagined would become AirPods or the golden age of Hotel Plaza , in New York . It was also the first time that many discovered the Radio City Music Hall either Central Park . And already pointing us out a bit, it is also the film in which Santa Claus stumbles in front of the Empire Diner , one of the locations where we photographed the model Helena Christensen for our June 2018 issue. If we're at all.
But enough of giving you reasons why Home Alone triumphs year after year in our hearts... better, press play ( Disney+ has it at your disposal) with good popcorn. It's December, it's what it touches.