In fact, "Home Alone" held a Guinness World Record for more than 27 years. It won the weekend box office race, earning $17,081,997 at 1202 cinemas and remained in the top 10 until June of the following year, holding onto the top spot for a whole 12 weeks. It broke records as the highest-grossing movie of 1990 and the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever in the United States, according to Guinness World Records.

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The holiday-themed snow in the movie wasn't intended to be part of the plan. A blizzard on the second day of filming required the production to keep the McCallisters' Chicago suburb coated in synthetic snow even after the real snow had melted away, though originally, there wasn’t any budget dedicated to synthetic snow.

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LoneTomato

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They used powered mashed potato flakes, if I remember correctly. Huge nasty mess as it warmed up and the flakes mixed with melting snow.

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Thought that tarantula in the movie was fake? It is as real as real can be. Daniel Stern agreed to do it, but he would only permit one take. Also, Stern had to mimic the scream and have the sound added later to avoid startling the spider. To make this fact even scarier, the tarantula was still able to hurt the actor, if he wasn’t careful.

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You shouldn’t even bother searching for a full version of "Angels With Filthy Souls". Why? It’s not real. It’s a creation of fiction in "Home Alone". "Angels With Filthy Souls" is a made-up movie which appears in the first film. In "Home Alone 2", the fragment of a fake sequel "Angels With Even Filthier Souls" is shown too. Even a real movie sequel can’t tell the same joke… just need to change it a bit.

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tara

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I sadly tried to find that movie last year at Christmas.

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When you star in a classic, it’s common to watch it over and over, but Macaulay Culkin is not a fan of rewatching "Home Alone". The reason for it is quite valid. He just can’t watch it from the point of a simple viewer. Some scenes that crack a smile for us, are usually just annoying for him.

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Joe Pesci took an extra step to make a particular scene more realistic and fun. During the filming of a scene where he bit Kevin’s finger, he actually did bite it. Macaulay Culkin said, "During one of the rehearsals, he bit me, and it broke the skin." Sounds quite painful.

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Making a "family-friendly" film like "Home Alone" wasn't Joe Pesci's cup of tea. It's natural that Pesci, who is most known for playing in the films like "Raging Bull", "Goodfellas", and "Casino", wasn't quite acclimated to the entire family-friendly environment on the set of "Home Alone" and used a few f-bombs as a result. Columbus advised Pesci to use the word "fridge" instead of his penchant for using the swear word.

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The initial screenplay did not include the Old Man Marley character, the moral foundation of the movie. The reportedly frightening neighbor who ends up teaching Kevin about the value of family was added in the later drafts of the screenplay. Columbus, who believed the movie needed a deeper dosage of sentimentality, suggested adding him.

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In the movie "Home Alone", the part of Kevin McCallister was created with Macaulay Culkin in mind. The director, Chris Columbus, still put more than 100 additional mischievous preteens through a series of auditions for the role. Which was really in vain because Culkin excelled in the job.

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Allegedly, Kevin's line "Do you guys give up or are you thirsty for more?" directed at Harry and Marv was actually improvised on set. Who could have known that a young child could be so cold-blooded towards some amateur criminals?

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Even so many years after production was finished, Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin, still calls Catherine O'Hara, who played his mom, “Mommy.” In 2012, when the two co-stars ran into each other, Culkin called O'Hara “Mommy,” and she answered him with a friendly “Baby.”

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The real owners of the McAllister residence actually stayed there throughout the five months of filming. Yet, they were primarily restricted to the home's main suite. It didn’t stop the production or cause any disruptions.

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The McCallister house from the film "Home Alone" has grown to be a popular tourist destination. The kitchen, main staircase, and ground-floor landing seen in the movie were all filmed in this five-bedroom house, which is located at 671 Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka, Illinois. The house was held by John and Cynthia Abendshien when it served as one of the film's locations, and they sold it for $1.585 million in 2012.

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cadena kuhn

cadena kuhn

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My brother in law lives around the corner

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In the movie "Home Alone", Joe Pesci went full method acting on Macaulay Culkin. Joe Pesci tried his best to stay away from Macaulay Culkin on the set so that the young actor would be terrified of him to obtain the most genuine portrayal possible. And considering that the young actor is still physically scarred from one unintentional altercation, nobody can blame him for feeling a little frightened.

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tara

tara

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Huh?? Scarred from what?!

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Without a fun little conspiracy idea, no blockbuster film would be complete. Apparently, some believed that Elvis Presley, who passed away in 1977, made a cameo appearance in the movie. Well, no matter how badly we wish for The King to return, this theory was debunked by film’s cinematographer Julio Macat and executive producer Tarquin Gotch.

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"Home Alone" is named differently in other countries. If you are ever in Argentina around the time "Home Alone" plays, don’t be surprised when you see it called Oh, the "Poor Angel". In Italy? "Mom, I Lost the Plane". Poland also has its version called Kevin "Alone in the House". Creative, let’s give them that!

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trollingergirl

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Kevin - Allein zu Haus in Germany (Kevin - alone at home)

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In 2018, "Home Alone" was parodied by Macaulay Culkin. For a Google Assistant commercial, Macaulay Culkin, now 42, visited the McCallister home and reenacted some of his most memorable "Home Alone" scenes with a modern twist. It’s better than it sounds, even if they didn’t include the more memorable pranks.

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tara

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This commercial was a highlight of Christmas!

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While real snow might fall outside our windows, in "Home Alone", the snow we see is not always real. A lot of things were used to imitate the fluffy and flaky snow we see on screen, one of them being ground-up potato flakes. It can be seen at the end of the movie when snow begins to fall outside the house.

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It’s important to think not only of the physical safety of a child actor, but also make sure his mental state is alright too. During a scene where Kevin picks up a copy of Playboy, a magazine that has a lot of, let’s say, not-appropriate-for-children content, a few pages were taped together. This was done to throw a joke at the dirty-minded, but also to prevent any psychological harm done to Macaulay Culkin.

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An additional, post-credits scene in which Harry and Marv watch "Angels with Filthy Souls" on TV while imprisoned was supposed to be included yet wasn’t. In fact, several other scenes were cut from the final version.

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When you hit a strike, you feel that urge to replicate that experience more than once. Hitting a home run with "Home Alone", Chris Columbus went on to direct other classic Christmas movies that still play yearly. He directed Mrs. Doubtfire and several Harry Potter movies, like "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets".

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“Home Alone” became a verb as a result of the film's exceptional success. The late, great, Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman acknowledged in his book Who Killed Hollywood? And Other Essays that the movie’s unexpected success led to the coining of the phrase "to be Home Aloned," which denotes that other movies suffered at the box office as a result of “Home Alone’s extended and successful run.

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"Home Alone" produced more than just a follow-up. All of the main characters from the original cast returned for "Home Alone 2". Moreover, the success of the first film sparked a full-fledged franchise that includes four sequels, three video games, two board games, a novelization, and other kid-friendly goods.

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Luce the Deuce

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don’t watch any of the other sequels besides Home Alone 2

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"Home Alone" was entirely filmed in the Chicago region. The McCallister family is in Paris while Kevin is at home in Illinois, which is the key plot element; however, the entire production didn't even leave the state of Illinois. Thus, the many places that seemed foreign were actually filmed domestically.

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In 2012, Dr. Ryan St. Clair made a prognosis regarding the cruel tricks played on the intruders. Apparently, Harry and Marv might not have made it through Kevin's vicious attacks in "Home Alone" in real life. A single eight-year-old committed an awful lot of violence against the Wet Bandits. So much so that by the end of the night none of them should have been walking, let alone stayed conscious.

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corgiobsessed00

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if you want to see a more chaotic and violent version of the traps, watch Violent Night...

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The alleged glass ornaments that Marv stepped on were actually candies. However, Stern did perform his barefoot scenes with rubber feet, though, just to be safe. That candy can be sharp and cause some injuries if the angle is just right.

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Kevin's older sister is a really talented person. Hillary Wolf, who played Kevin's older sister Megan in "Home Alone", earned the lead role in Joan Micklin Silver's Big Girls Don't Cry... They Get Even two years later. She also made an appearance in "Home Alone 2", but since then, she hasn't been seen on a big screen. But she's not here for a good reason: She competed for the United States on the summer judo team in 1996 and 2000.

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While John Candy is one of the funniest people in the movie, remembered by many, he was paid less than a less-seen character — the pizza boy. Even after working for 23 hours to fulfill his cameo in the movie, he didn’t get paid much for it, less than $500. This happened because he feared the movie would not be successful.

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Originally, John Hughes intended Christopher Columbus to direct "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", but after meeting with actor Chevy Chase, who was supposed to star in it, things took a turn for the worse. Hence, following an altercation between Columbus and Chase, Hughes offered Columbus the opportunity to direct "Home Alone" instead. And the rest is history.

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Tinderella

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Does anyone like Chevy Chase?

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O'Hare International Airport was used instead of Paris Orly Airport to film the scenes.

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One of the greatest pranks from "Home Alone" is the cutting of the rope between the house and the treehouse. But did you know that that treehouse was built specifically for the movie? Originally, the place didn’t have a treehouse, so the production team built one and destroyed it after the production was over.

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It’s hard to find the right actor for an important role. For the role of Harry Lime, a lot of actors were invited and interviewed, till finally, Joe Pesci took up the role. Robert De Niro, who worked on several movies with Joe Pesci, declined the part of Harry Lime, as did Jon Lovitz.

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Sam Juan

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I honestly don't think that Jon Lovitz might have given a performance as good as what we got from Joe Pesci

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The character of Harry is a homage to a different kind of motion picture classic. Harry's full name is Harry Lyme, the same as the character played by Orson Welles in the classic 1949 film noir "The Third Man". In that movie, Orson Welles' character was also named Harry Lime.

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The "Home Alone" score wasn't supposed to be written by John Williams. Bruce Broughton was originally Chris Columbus' choice for the soundtrack to "Home Alone" and his name can be seen on certain teaser posters. However, because of a scheduling difficulty, Broughton was unable to complete the task, thus it remained unfinished until Columbus sent John Williams a finished print of "Home Alone", which she adored.

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A hidden star of "Home Alone" is a school in the Chicago region. The New Trier High School swimming pool, located north of Chicago, served as the location for the house's basement set. The scenes involving the police station and parts of the airport shots were also filmed at the school.

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There is a little error in the blowtorch sequence. The iconic scene was created with the deception method called "Pepper's Ghost," in which the fire was actually pointing at a pane of glass and was directed at a phony head sculpture. But, a mistake was made and left in the final cut. Because Joe Pesci's placement was slightly off, for a split second, the astute viewers were able to notice the fake head.

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The script is like a blueprint. Some directors stick to it, point to point, while others are more flexible, giving more freedom to the actors. When filming "Home Alone", producer John Hughes asked the actors to stick to the script but made an exception for his friend, John Candy.

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One of the scenes where Kevin uses a BB gun was animated to an extent. To secure the safety of the adult actors, the scene where a BB pellet goes into Marv’s head is “fake.” With a budget of $18 million, the $600 that was spent on animating the scene seemed like nothing for the studio like 20th Century Fox.

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The Wet Bandits have to live up to their name by flooding the houses of their victims. In real life, they didn’t flood any houses. In "Home Alone", when they go through a flooded house, they just go through a semi-filled swimming pool. So in actuality, the wet bandits are just filling the pool, like pool boys.

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These days, movies are filled with CGI stunts, but the older movies were more realistic. Most of the stunt acts we see in "Home Alone" were genuine, and one even bears the name “Home Alone”. Although Culkin, Pesci, and Daniel Stern's characters didn't fall or take any knocks during the movie, their stunt counterparts did.

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In less than ten days, the "Home Alone" idea was realized on paper. Before the creators family's first vacation to Europe in 1989, traveler's nervousness generated the concept for the movie, according to James Hughes, the son of renowned screenwriter John Hughes, who penned the script for "Home Alone" in less than 10 days.

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When it comes to moviemaking, there are a lot of different expenditures that can pile up quite a budget. And sometimes, that budget can balloon during the production process. So it’s not strange that Warner Brothers refused to pay the $18 million budget that was drafted. But luckily for us, 20th Century Fox picked up the bill and got a lot for their investment.

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No one can doubt that the soundtrack of "Home Alone" is just able to create those festive Christmas vibes year after year. John Williams, a legend of movie soundtracks, created one of the best music tracks in the movie, “Somewhere in My Memory,” which got only positive reactions from fans and hard-headed critics.

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It’s hard to imagine "Home Alone" movies without Macaulay Culkin, the main actor in the first two movies. But as years passed, he got a little bit too old to reprise his role as Kevin in the sequels. So, to replace him, several young actors were tried out, but you can’t simply change the face of the movies.

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A lot of problems can arise from the small arguments that studio and creative teams have. "Home Alone" had one serious point of argument — the budget. For Warner Brothers it was too large, for John Hughes, it was just barely enough. The budget was so strict that Hughes knew that he couldn’t work with Warner Brothers studio on this project.

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John Hughes got the concept for "Home Alone" while working on "Uncle Buck". There is a scene in which Culkin's character questions a potential babysitter through a mail slot since he is always willing to play the precocious one. A similar conflict between Culkin and Daniel Stern occurs in "Home Alone", however, this time, it happens through a doggy door.

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Not all Culkins who appeared in "Home Alone" were Macaulay Culkin’s siblings, only one. Kieran, Macaulay's younger brother, played Fuller, Kevin's bedwetting cousin. Kieran made his acting debut in the movie, but since then, he has gone on to have an amazing career in films including The Cider House Rules, Igby Goes Down, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and FX's Fargo.

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In "Home Alone", John Candy shot all of his scenes in a single day. But boy, was that a long day — 23 hours to be exact. John Candy frequently appeared in John Hughes's films, and the polka-playing good guy he plays in "Home Alone", Gus Polinski, was modeled after John Candy's character in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

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Daniel Stern, who plays Marv in "Home Alone", was acquainted with Joe Pesci's work before the two of them formed the Wet Bandits because they collaborated on the 1982 movie "I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can". Daniel recalled the experience favorably even if their scenes were removed from the finished movie.

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That joyful mishap involving the aftershave was actually improvised. Macaulay was reportedly instructed to apply the aftershave, take his hands off, and then scream. Instead, he chose to keep his hands away from his face, and as the cast and crew burst out laughing, the 'mistake' made it into the final cut. It went down in film history as an iconic moment of "Home Alone".

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Zipping down a zipline looks perilous, and it sure is. The height alone can scare a young child, let alone going down it full speed. Thus, Macaulay Culkin had a stunt double who was actually a grown man. It was Larry Nicholas, a 30-year-old stunt veteran at the time.

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When you’re making a Christmas movie, you just have to include a Santa character in it. Chris Farley tried out for the part of Santa but was unsuccessful. Although we believe the legendary Saturday Night Live performer would have been a fantastic fit, it appears that his audition fell short.

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Sometimes, even popcorn can deceive the eye and seem dangerous. During the popcorn scene, more security was put in place to avoid a probable lawsuit. Crew workers had to lay on the floor on either side of the bed as Culkin jumped up and down while munching on popcorn.

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In the original screenplay, there were more scenes of Kevin's family and fewer of Kevin. This was done to balance out the different storylines. However, test viewers preferred to see more of Kevin alone and less of his family in Paris, so producers changed the movie and its marketing to reflect this.

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While we can’t relive the "Home Alone" story in our lives, since, well, everybody is staying in their houses for the holidays, you may experience it through a game! The game under the same name was released on multiple gaming platforms. However, since it was released in the ‘90s, the graphics are not quite on par with some of the modern games we currently have.

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Chris Columbus learned a very valuable lesson from the choice to cast Kieran Culkin in "Home Alone". After helming "Home Alone 2", "Mrs. Doubtfire", and two installments of the "Harry Potter" series, his experience with the younger Culkin prepared him for working with child actors. One thing he took away is that working with a child actor also means working with the child's family.

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The snowstorm in the movie benefited the Lyric Opera of Chicago. When the "Home Alone" movie was finished shooting, the production company gave some of the plastic and wax-based fake snow they had constructed to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Since then, it has appeared in several of their projects.

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There was intended to be a spinoff for Marv. The 1995 movie "Bushwhacked", directed by Greg Beeman and starring Daniel Stern as a delivery man on the run after being falsely accused of homicide, was initially intended to be a "Home Alone" prequel. The plot would have been essentially the same: Marv would have been falsely accused of the same homicide after the renunciation of the crime.

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The crew had to substitute Macaulay during evening and night shootings because child labor rules forbid minor actors from filming after 10 p.m. On occasion, Kevin was portrayed off-screen by director Chris Columbus. And to ensure that Catherine O'Hara's (Kevin's mother) eyeline matched in close-up shots, the crew had her deliver lines to a tennis ball on a stand that was raised to Macaulay's eye level.

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Buzz’s real girlfriend is a boy. Chris Columbus thought Kevin's reaction to seeing a framed picture of Buzz's girlfriend would be way too cruel if it were directed at a real girl. The boyfriend in the picture who appears surprised is the son of the movie's art director.

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Originally, the spooky furnace played a more significant part in the story. In the original "Home Alone" script, the terrifying McCallister furnace was supposed to star in a lengthy dream sequence in which it terrorized Kevin throughout the house. In the end, it got a lot less attention and was merely used as a few-second gag.

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Kelsey Grammer is another comedian actor who the creative team behind "Home Alone" wanted to appear. He was almost hired for the role of Uncle Frank, which was written with Kelsey Grammer in mind. Eventually, after the Frasier star refused the role, Gerry Bamman got hired to act as the joke-cracking uncle.

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Compared to Harry and Marv, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern didn't experience as much abuse. According to supervising sound editor Michael Wilhoit, the crew used frozen roast meat to simulate the sound of victims hitting the ground.

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Not every great movie can be measured in the Oscars it got nominated for and won. Strangely, "Home Alone" was nominated only for two categories, missing out on the Best Picture nomination. While it might not have won the big awards, it did win the hearts and minds of many people around the world.

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When the right location isn't found, a soundstage must be used. For "Home Alone", many filming locations were found in either a school, a real house, and so on. However, the majority of first-floor scenes (except the kitchen) were filmed in a soundstage.

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When you have scenes taking place both in Paris and Chicago, sticking to a limited budget can get pretty tricky. Thus, the crew of "Home Alone" had to stick to just several filming locations. For this reason, the Chicago O'Hare International Airport was used to film the Paris Orly Airport scenes.

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Harry's eyes are spinning at how much money "Home Alone" has made and how well the sequels are doing financially. "Home Alone" has earned an astounding $476,684,675 worldwide to date. With this kind of results, Harry could purchase 39,723,722 additional beanies for $12 each with that amount.

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Finding the ideal home for the movie took weeks. According to Entertainment Weekly, it took Chris Columbus and his team several weeks to locate the McCallister home for "Home Alone". They finally settled on a house in Winnetka, Illinois, since they found it to be both cozy and foreboding.

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When it comes to the studios of Hollywood, not every studio has the ability to deliver a project to its greatest possible result. Deals happen and projects are changed, and "Home Alone" is not a stranger to this. Originally, Warner Brothers had the rights to the project, but, through a deal, gave the rights to 20th Century Fox and Hughes Entertainment.

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