When the Christmas comedy filmHome Alonewas released in November 1990,John Hughes, the film’s producer and writer, hoped that the film’s box-office performance would be comparable to that of his mostrecent films, National Lampoon’s VacationandUncle Buck, which grossed $71.3 million and $66.7 million, respectively, at the domestic box office. However,Home Alonegrossed approximately $476 million at the worldwide box office against a production cost of $18 million. The worldwide box-office performance ofHome Alone, which remains the most successful live-action family comedy film in history, eclipsed the combined box-office total of all the previous films that Hughes had variously directed and produced since 1984 when Hughes made his feature directorial debut with the teen comedy filmSixteen Candles.
Indeed, after establishing his career and now legendary reputation within the teen film genre, Hughes had, prior toHome Alone, successfully shifted away from the teen genre and toward adult-oriented comedy films, beginning with the 1987comedy film Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which became Hughes’ most critically acclaimed film. However, the blockbuster success ofHome Alonecompelled Hughes to permanently abandon the charm and perceptiveness of his previous films in favor of producing and writing increasingly impersonal, repetitive family-friendly films. In this regard,Home Alonewas a curse.
The Home Alone Formula
Home Alone
The success ofHome Aloneattached an intractable formula to the career of John Hughes, who was subsequently never able to escape the increasingly wearisome influence ofHome Alone. The “Home Alone formula” is, of course, embodied inHome Alonewith Macaulay Culkin as the film’s protagonist, Kevin McCallister, a precocious, resourceful child who is accidentally left behind in his family home after his family leaves him to embark on a family vacation in Paris. Left to his own devices, Kevin has to defend the house against a pair of incompetent burglars.
TheHome Aloneformula was applied by Hughes in virtually all of Hughes’ remaining films, most especially with the 1992 sequel,Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, in which Kevin is stranded in New York City. The Hughes-produced filmsBaby’s Day Out,Career Opportunities,Curly Sue,Dennis the Menace,Dutch, andMiracle on 34th Street, which were released between 1991 and 1994, all feature protagonists, who are, to varying degrees, virtual Kevin McAllister clones.
Perhaps the most interesting application of this formula appears in the 1991 comedy filmCareer Opportunities, which features a darker, older variation of the Kevin McCallister character in the form of a delusional, idling twenty-one-year-old man who takes a job as an overnight janitor at a local Target store, where he eventually has to defend himself against two bumbling crooks. While the first hour or so ofCareer Opportunitiespresents a dark character study of a troubled young man who is traumatized by his horriblehigh school experience, referencing the adolescent anguish from Hughes’ teen films, the rest of the film essentially plays likeHome Alonein a Target store, in place of Kevin’s house.
Home Alone Turned Hughes From an Auteur to a Commodity
In 1991,Home Alonedistributor 20th Century Fox signed Hughes to a seven-film production deal that was worth $200 million. Of course, this deal revolved around the 1992Home Alonesequel,Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which grossed approximately $359 million at the worldwide box office against a production cost of $28 million.
FollowingHome Alone, seemingly every unrealized script that Hughes had written prior to the release ofHome Alonewas dusted off, so to speak, and rushed into production. Perhaps the most disheveled film that emerged from this process was the 1991 road comedy-drama filmDutch, for which Hughes, as producer and writer, combined elements ofHome AloneandPlains, Trains and Automobileswith dismal results.
Related:Home Alone: 10 Reasons the Original Movie Is the Best in the Series
Dutch, which was the first film that Hughes produced for Fox under the production deal, grossed less than $5 million at the domestic box office against a production cost of $17 million. Indeed, except forHome Alone 2: Lost in New York, none of the films that emerged from the Fox deal, includingBaby’s Day Out,Home Alone 3,Miracle on 34th Street, andOnly the Lonely, were commercially successful.
Why Did John Hughes Quit Making Movies?
In 1994, John Hughes left Hollywood and moved back tohis native Chicago, where he oversaw his film production company, Hughes Entertainment, until 2002, when Hughes dissolved the company. Following his death in 2009, various colleagues and friends of Hughes stated that Hughes was primarily motivated to leave Hollywood by both a desire to raise his children outside of Hollywood and his sadness over the 1994 death of collaborator and friend John Candy, who made a cameo appearance inHome Alone.
The nadir of Hughes’ career came with the 1997 standalone sequel toHome Alone 2: Alone in New York,Home Alone 3, which was produced and written by Hughes, who originally intended for the film to star Macaulay Culkin. When Culkin became unavailable, Hughes reworked the film’s script to revolve around a new child character, played by Alex D. Linz. Whether due to the absence of Culkin and the five-year delay, audiences rejectedHome Alone 3, which grossed a comparatively disappointing $30.8 at the domestic box office against a production cost of $32 million.
Related:Best John Hughes Movies, Ranked
The last film that Hughes produced and wrote before his death was the obscure 1998 comedy-drama filmReach the Rock, which received dreadful reviews and grossed less than $5,000 at the box office. Thus,Home Aloneacted as the turning point in Hughes' career, which took a drastic turn from comedy king to one trick pony. However, the fact that Hughes is responsible for so many iconic, beloved comedies is not erased by this later downswing in his career.
John Hughes' Most Notable Works
Release Year
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Uncle Buck
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
