The studio realised people really liked seeing this kid torment two burglars
Macaulay Culkin proved that the true spirit of Christmas is a young child torturing two burglars who invade his home until an old man comes in and beats them over the head with a shovel.
At least that’s the message I got out of Home Alone.
Now that it’s December, it’s once again socially acceptable to watch Christmas movies and Home Alone has got to be one of the best out there, as behind all the violence and gruesome injuries is a lovely message about the importance of family.
Of course Kevin McCallister’s parents can’t have learned that lesson too well the first time around because they forgot him again in the sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
While I still prefer the charm of the original, the sequel is still a pretty darn good movie and also counts as a festive film.
While Culkin is better known for the first Home Alone movie he was definitely better paid for the sequel, which once again pitted him against the ‘Wet Bandits’ Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) as he put them through a series of traps which would have been unambiguously fatal had it not been a charming Christmas movie.
You little psycho… Fun to watch though (20th Century Fox)
According to The Things, Culkin was paid a handsome sum of $100,000 for his part in the first Home Alone – and remember, that was worth a lot more back in the early 90s than it would be today.
However, since Home Alone made such a stonkingly massive amount of money at the box office that the actors returning for a sequel could command a much higher price.
For Home Alone 2 he was paid somewhere in the region of $4.5 million, a whopping payrise of 4,400 percent, but was worth the money as the movie likewise turned a huge profit.
While he was paid what is a hefty sum for anyone, let alone a kid, to be in the movies Macaulay Culkin doesn’t actually get paid for them nowadays.
Kevin’s raking in the big bucks while he electrocutes a man within an inch of his life (20th Century Fox)
For some actors getting royalties in the contract means they get paid over and over again for the movies they’ve been in, though some of the payments aren’t very much.
Reece Thompson, one of the children in Titanic, revealed he occasionally gets sent money many years after the film released.
Meanwhile, Jason Weaver was left thanking his lucky stars after he got cast as the singing voice of young Simba in The Lion King and his mum insisted he turned down a $2 million payday and instead negotiated some royalties.
Instead of $2 million up front he got $100,000, but the royalties have earned him so much more over his career than he’d have made upfront.
Featured Image Credit: Disney+/Kimberly White/Getty Images
Topics: Home Alone, Macaulay Culkin, Money, TV and Film
We’re all well versed with the plot of Home Alone by now and the film title is pretty self explanatory too.
Macaulay Culkin shot to fame after playing mischievous eight-year-old Kevin McCallister in the 1990 festive film, who ends up getting left behind while his family head on a trip to France without him.
We’ve all wondered how his parents Kate and Peter McCallister (Catherine O’Hara and John Heard) somehow managed to forget about their youngest son and only realised when they’re thousands of feet in the air en route to Europe.
On top of being left to fend for himself, poor Kevin had the added responsibility of defending the family home from two bumbling burglars, Harold ‘Harry’ Lyme (Joe Pesci) and Marvin ‘Marv’ Merchants (Daniel Stern).
Childline would have had a field day with this brood.
Many theories about the blonde-haired kid’s abandonment have floated about over the years, but there is one particular hypothesis that seems to add up – especially as there is hard evidence to back it up in the actual film.
Diehard Home Alone fans will remember what happened the night before the McCallister’s are off to the airport, but if you need a reminder, the full family are sitting down to eat pizza and Kevin’s order of plain cheese is no where to be seen.
That’s because his brutish brother Buzz has already scoffed the lot – even though he is well aware his younger sibling doesn’t enjoy the same toppings as his relatives; sausage, olives and onions to be specific.
Kevin is obviously pretty gutted he hasn’t got any tea and Buzz is on the wind up, telling him if he still wants to eat the cheese pizza ‘someone will have to barf it all up’. Lovely.
20th Century Fox
The eight-year-old sees red and charges at the scran stealer, sending him flying backwards into several cups of milk which spill all over the family’s passports and plane tickets.
His dad Peter sees the soggy consequences of the scuffle and bounces up to try and save their soaked travel documents – before dozens of hands join in the mopping up process.
The camera keeps its focus on the McCallister family patriarch though throughout the scene and hones in on what else he has got scrunched up in one of the napkins that he used to clear up the milk mess.
20th Century Fox
It’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment, but some eagle eyed viewers spotted that Peter accidentally tossed one of the American Airline’s pamphlets into the trash too – which has Kevin’s name written on the top.
The young protagonist is then banished to the attic for the night and he storms upstairs, wishing that he never sees any of his family members again – which obviously then sort of comes true.
The next day, while the rest of the McCallister’s are piling in the minibus and heading off to the airport, a small kid from the neighbourhood is having a whale of a time rifling through their luggage and is accidentally included in the head count.
20th Century Fox
These two major errors – the binned plane ticket and the botched roll call – help to explain how the family managed to board a plane and fly thousands of miles before realising that the little fella had been left behind.
Social media users have shared their theory online after spotting the tiny detail in the plot and people agreed it was a plausible explanation.
One said: “I have seen Home Alone probably 1 billion times, but was today years old when I realised they threw out Kevin’s plane ticket during the pizza debacle and that’s why no one figured out he was gone earlier at, like, the airport.”
Another wrote: “Watching Home Alone for the 50th time and I’ve never noticed that in the starting scene when there is a fight in the kitchen, Kevin’s ticket is put in the bin. Who knew?”
Still, at least he made the best of a bad situation by torturing a couple of clumsy burglars.
Featured Image Credit: 20th Century Fox
Topics: TV and Film, Christmas, Home Alone, Macaulay Culkin
