Home Alone

 On this date in 1990, "Home Alone" was released.

Writer and producer John Hughes conceived "Home Alone" while preparing to go on vacation. He said: "I was going away on vacation, and making a list of everything I didn’t want to forget. I thought, 'Well, I'd better not forget my kids.' Then I thought, 'What if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do?'" Hughes wrote eight pages of notes that developed into the screenplay. Imagining that children are naturally most scared of robbers, Hughes also worked that aspect into the plot of the film.

Hughes suggested to director Chris Columbus that they cast Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, because of his experience while shooting "Uncle Buck" (1989). Columbus met with 200 other actors for the part, as he felt it was his "directorial responsibility." John Mulaney was asked to audition for the role of Kevin but his parents declined. Columbus finally met with Culkin and agreed he was the right choice.

After Robert De Niro and Jon Lovitz turned down the role of Harry, Joe Pesci accepted it. he role of Uncle Frank was written for Kelsey Grammer, but was given to Gerry Bamman when Grammer was unavailable.

Daniel Stern was cast as Marv, but before shooting started, he was told that the production schedule had been extended from six weeks to eight. He dropped out after as he would not be paid more for the extended schedule. Daniel Roebuck was hired to replace him, but after two days of rehearsal, Columbus felt he was lacking chemistry with Pesci and brought back Stern. Roebuck later said that, although he was upset to be fired from the production, he now believed the experience was "a little blip of unimportance." Chris Farley auditioned for the role of the Santa Claus impersonator, but he failed to impress Columbus.

John Candy was available for only one day to film his scenes, which took 23 hours to shoot. He was only paid $414, since he did the film as a favor to Hughes. In return, he was the only actor Hughes allowed to go off-script; according to Columbus, all his dialogue was improvised.