Here's everything you probably never knew about Home Alone, starring Macauley Culkin. Photo / Supplied
Here's everything you probably never knew about Home Alone, starring Macauley Culkin. Photo / Supplied
For the better part of 30 years, Home Alone has been a holiday classic.
In 1990, the movie about a little boy who accidentally gets left behind at Christmas when his family goes to Paris was released, breaking box office records and turning its nine-year-old star Macauley Culkin into a household name.
Since then, plenty of fans have made a habit of rewatching it once Christmas rolls around.
With that time upon us once again, here are some fun facts you probably didn't know about Home Alone.
Home Alone made it into The Guinness Book Of World Records as the Highest Box-Office Gross — Comedy, raking in a whopping $US476 million worldwide.
That's a LOT of money. Photo / Supplied
The "ugly girl"
Director Chris Columbus (rightly) decided it would be too mean to cast a female actor as Buzz's girlfriend — who's only seen in a picture frame — as she'd always be known as the "ugly" girl. Instead, he got the movie's art director's son to dress up.
Joe Pesci wasn't the first choice to play the villain Harry — Robert De Niro actually turned down the role before it was offered to Pesci.
Meanwhile, Pesci kept forgetting he was filming a family-friendly movie and would frequently drop profanities during his character's outbursts. Eventually, Columbus insisted he say "fridge" whenever another F-word came to mind — and it worked, except for one scene in which he drops "sh*t" instead.
Pesci was keen on making Harry's interactions with young Kevin McCallister as authentic as possible, so avoided him on set in order to make Culkin scared of him.
It worked, and Culkin was intimidated by the older man. However, things went a little too far during one of the rehearsals, when Pesci — in character — bit Culkin on the finger during a scene where the burglars have actually hung Kevin on a coat hook.
In later interviews, the young star admitted he was furious.
"I got really mad at him. I was like, 'I don't care how many Oscars you have, or whatever — don't go biting a 9-year-old! What the heck's wrong with you?'"
Things got a little too real during this scene. Photo / Supplied
Seeing double
Obviously, it was never going to be feasible to employ a child to do dangerous stunts (and there are plenty in the movie — tobogganing down the stairs?!), which meant the role of Culkin's stunt double went to a very short adult.
Larry Nicholas, 30, happened to be the right size — and is a hugely experienced stuntman. He's worked on The Matrix Reloaded, Dante's Peak, Jurassic Park, Hook and Waterworld, along with dozens of other movies.
Also — the toboggan from that iconic scene was actually signed by the entire cast and given to the director at the end of filming.
Barry the spider
No one would envy Daniel Stern — who played Marv, the other half of the villain duo — for having to have a giant tarantula crawl across his face. The actor agreed to do it once, and once only — but he had to fake that piercing scream, because if he yelled too loudly, it would have frightened the spider.
Fun fact: The tarantula's name was Barry.
Marathon improv
John Candy — who played Gus Polinski, filmed all of his scenes in a marathon 23-hour session.
Gus offers Kevin's desperately worried mum, Kate McCallister, a ride home to reunite her with her son, chattering the whole way.
John Candy made up most of his lines on the spot. Photo / Supplied
Candy improvised almost all of his dialogue, and actor Catherine O'Hara (Kate) later admitted most of what they shot was unusable.
"(Writer/producer) John Hughes would start a bit, and Candy would pick up on it, and we would just go with it. It was all in the moment. We'd start a ridiculous conversation and go as far as we could. Chris (Columbus) told me later how we couldn't use most of it. He laughed and said, 'You're supposed to be looking for your kid, and you're just having a good time with these guys in a truck.'"
