It’s that time of year when we all stay snuggled up watching our favorite Christmas movies -the Home Alone franchise included.
The 1990s family classic follows the story of Kevin, played by Macaulay Culkin, who gets left home alone while his entire family leave for Christmas and he has to protect his home from burglars, known as the ‘Wet Bandits’ – played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.
Adventure ensues while young Kevin sets up clever boobytraps to catch the burglars and protect his home.
Stern, now 67, has revealed that he almost turned down the role after filming was changed from six weeks to eight weeks but his pay of $300k remained the same.
After he left, producers begged him to come back as they didn’t like his replacement. He has since described his decision to leave as ‘one of the stupidest decisions in my show business life’.
The original film made around $500 million in theatres.
When the filming for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York started, he was offered $600k but found out his counterpart, Joe Pesci was offered $3 million.
He left his agent and demanded he be given $1.5 million as well as 2% of the gross profits of Home Alone 2.
He said; “I knew they couldn’t do the movie without me, but I was also insecure, since I almost blew it the first time,”.
“I didn’t want to be too greedy when I loved the movie and the part so much.”
He received the $1.5 million but the studio negotiated his percentage down to 1%.
The sequel grossed $359,000,000 meaning his 1% earned him an extra $3.59 million. In today’s terms, that would be around $8 million.
Not bad!
