How Chevy Chase drove Chris Columbus off the set of a classic comedy
It’s been made clear by any number of names that repeatedly rubbing people the wrong way will do nothing to prevent the offending party from enjoying a long, successful, and lucrative career, as Chevy Chase has discovered first-hand despite his less-than-stellar reputation in Hollywood circles.
As far back as his Saturday Night Live days in the late 1970s, the actor and comedian has made a habit of antagonising his colleagues and co-workers. Bill Murray – himself no stranger to behind the scenes discord – even came to blows with Chase when they both starred in the sketch series at the same time, something that would become a hallmark of both of their careers for better or worse.
He also feuded with John Belushi and the creative minds behind Community at various points, with one disagreement on the set of a beloved Christmastime classic between Chase and relatively unproven filmmaker Chris Columbus inadvertently opening the doors to another staple of the Yuletide viewing calendar that’s even more popular.
When production of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation began in March of 1989, Columbus only had two features under his belt as the director of Adventures in Babysitting and Heartbreak Hotel. Screenwriter and producer John Hughes still believed the promising up-and-comer was the ideal candidate to helm the Griswold family’s latest excursion, but the leading man had other ideas.
Describing his brief flirtation with Christmas Vacation to Insider, Columbus didn’t beat around the bush: “It was fraught with pain and tension and Chevy Chase, but I needed the job desperately,” he admitted. “It took everything in my power to convince myself to resign from Christmas Vacation because I couldn’t make the movie with Chevy Chase.”
Echoing that opinion in Chicago, Columbus again made it clear why he walked away from the film, saying that “Chevy treated me like dirt”. He’d started capturing some establishing shots, but after trying to clear the air with his star didn’t go as planned, he had to call Hughes and tell him straight: “There’s no way I can do this movie. I know I need to work, but I can’t do it with this guy.”
Thankfully, Hughes respected the decision and decided to offer Columbus two more scripts, one of which was Home Alone, and as Columbus put it: “The rest is history.” Christmas Vacation was a well-received hit under the direction of replacement Jeremiah S. Chechik that gets revisited annually without fail, but it still can’t hold a candle to the runaway success and enduring popularity of Macaulay Culkin’s first misadventure as Kevin McCallister.
Chase may have proven so disagreeable that he forced a director to quit a feature when they’d already started shooting and were in desperate need of the income, but Columbus saw his bold decision vindicated and then some in the end when Home Alone arrived in cinemas less than a year after Christmas Vacation premiered and blew it out of the water.
