Home Alone turns 35 this year. This is one of the first movies that I can remember seeing in theaters when I was six years old, and now I watch it with my kids every year. Sometimes, we even watch both the first and second movies multiple times because we all love them so much. There are now six films in the franchise, but only the first two are centered around Macaulay Culkin, Catherine O’Hara, Joe Pesci, and Daniel Stern. We’ve watched all of them, but we don’t f-ck with the non-Kevin McCallister ones because the magic just simply isn’t there.
Last year, Macaulay began a holiday season tour called “A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin,” where he screens Home Alone and does a Q&A. At one event last year, he confirmed that Joe Pesci accidentally bit his finger during a rehearsal, and that left a scar. This year’s tour has brought even more juicy news. At a stop this past weekend in Long Beach, CA, Macaulay revealed that he’s finally down to play Kevin McC again, but there would have to be specific “conditions.” He even shared his own idea for a plot: This time, he’s in the Marv/Harry position while his own fictional child is setting the booby traps.
“I wouldn’t be completely allergic to it,” the 45-year-old star of the 1990 holiday classic said at his A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin tour on Sunday, Nov. 22. The event, held at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center in Long Beach, Calif., celebrated the 35th anniversary of Home Alone.
“It would have to be just right,” Culkin said of a follow-up to the 1990 comedy and its 1992 sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, in which he starred as abandoned youngster Kevin McCallister. (Third and fourth installments and a 2021 Disney+ reboot have followed, all with different casts.)
“I kind of had this idea,” he revealed, explaining how Kevin’s story might continue decades later. “I’m either a widower or a divorcee. I’m raising a kid and all that stuff. I’m working really hard and I’m not really paying enough attention and the kid is kind of getting miffed at me and then I get locked out.”
Kevin’s son, he continued, “won’t let me in.” Instead of robbers like Joe Pesci’s Harry and Daniel Stern’s Marv, “he’s the one setting traps for me.”
Furthermore, “the house is some sort of metaphor for our relationship,” added Culkin, a “‘get let back into his heart’ kind of deal. That’s the closest elevator pitch that I have. I’m not completely allergic to it, the right thing.”
Also at A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin, the actor discussed legally changing his middle name for a comedic bit and how his two sons, who he shares with fiancée Brenda Song, don’t recognize him when they watch Home Alone. “They have no idea that I’m Kevin,” he shared.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Home Alone’s original director Chris Columbus weighed in on another potential sequel. “I think Home Alone really exists as, not at this timepiece, but it was this very special moment, and you can’t really recapture that,” the filmmaker said. “I think it’s a mistake to try to go back and recapture something we did 35 years ago. I think it should be left alone.”
I shared this article in a group text with two other friends who also watch the first two Home Alone movies every year, and we debated Macaulay’s idea. Friend #1 shut it down immediately, proclaiming, ”I’m with Columbus. It’s a funny idea, but it’s better left alone.” Friend #2, however, said that she was intrigued and wanted to hear more. Personally, I go back and forth. I like Macaulay’s idea in which he plays the guy trying to get into the house. After 35 years of identifying with the kid who defended his home with broken ornaments, a blow torch, and a tarantula, it’s intriguing to turn the tables. I’d also be open to hearing pitches in which Kevin becomes his mother and is simply trying to get back after realizing that he left his own kid home alone. That may be unoriginal/cliche, but it would also bring things full circle.
Photos credit: Dave Starbuck/Future Image/Cover Images, Getty, Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon