Why Macaulay Culkin decided against buying the house from ‘Home Alone’: “I had half a mind”
We have now almost reached the time of year where it’s acceptable to put festive decorations up, start whistling tunes like ‘Deck the Halls’, wear some kind of patterned adult onesie all day and, most importantly, watch nothing but Christmas movies. Now, whether you’re an Elf or a Die Hard fan, one that you simply must stick on at some point is Home Alone with Macaulay Culkin.
After all, nothing says Christmas quite like the unhinged tale of an absolutely psychotic eight-year-old child left to his own demonic devices after being essentially abandoned by his own parents, who can’t even remember how many children they have, resulting in the repeated torture of two armed robbers.
Gratuitous violence aside, though, Home Alone is definitely one of the best Christmas movies ever made, with plenty of quotable lines and that indefinably comforting feel that John Hughes movies had, a simpler time before there were smartphones and TikTok and Trump (although of course he manages to make it into the second film).
Without doubt, it turned Caulkin from a normal kid into a global name, instantly making him a multi-millionaire overnight and setting him up for life. But of course, while he was financially sorted, the pressure of being essentially the most famous child on the planet caused him no end of personal issues, ending up with drug addiction, estrangement from his family and arrest.
But enough about that, it’s (almost) Christmas! Let’s get back to the movie in question, and more specifically, the house in which the action takes place, which was a real home in the town of Winnetka, Illinois, just outside Chicago. The mansion actually sold earlier this year for $5.5m, which weirdly because of how insanely stupidly expensive everything is these days doesn’t even sound like that much for one of the most instantly recognisable film locations ever.
Caulkin might actually be kicking himself, because last year he had the opportunity to buy the palatial place but passed on it, saying: “I had half a mind to buy it — just for giggles.”
Apparently, he considered snapping it up in order to turn it into something of a fun house featuring all the thrills and spills and boobytraps of the 1990 classic, but didn’t because: “I got kids, I’m a busy man”.
Had he decided to go for it, he would have owned a five bedroom, six bathroom property that last changed hands in 2012, and to give you some idea of inflation over the last decade or so, you could have purchased the Home Alone house back then for just $1.585m, which is about £1.2m, which these days will buy you some kind of shed in East London with a rat for a roommate and no roof. Or walls.
Now 45, Caulkin has rebounded after a troublesome couple of decades, and he’s even about to embark on a live tour called the ‘Home Alone Tour’ where he’ll be answering questions from the audience about not just his own festive classic but about all kinds of other Christmas movies too.
He’s also doing more acting, with a role in the successful video game adaptation TV series Fallout, which has been renewed for a second season, and voicing a character in the soon-to-be-released Zootropolis 2, or Zootopia 2 if you live in the UK, which we do, so let’s go with that.
