Macaulay Culkin has met with Disney about a new Home Alone film, and the idea on the table is his own. Matt Belloni reported on the July 28 episode of his podcast The Town that Culkin was spotted on the Disney lot in Burbank, and that the studio is “salivating” over what he brought them.
Culkin has described his version publicly. Speaking during the 35th anniversary run for the original film, he laid out a premise that inverts it: Kevin McCallister as an adult, a widower or a divorcee, working too hard and paying too little attention to his kid. He gets locked out of the house. His son is the one setting the traps.
Culkin framed the house as a metaphor for the relationship, with the character having to earn his way back into his son’s good graces. Whether that is the exact pitch Disney heard has not been confirmed, but Belloni says people who have heard it rate it highly.
Disney Is Doing The Chasing
Belloni described the studio as courting Culkin aggressively, to the point of dangling a separate passion project alongside a Home Alone return. He called it a reboot rather than a straight sequel, and said it may not happen while adding that he expects it will. TMZ subsequently confirmed the meeting, reporting that Culkin pitched executives at the Burbank studio.
Disney has announced nothing, and none of this is confirmed by the company.
Why Disney Wants It
Home Alone came to Disney through the 20th Century acquisition, and it is one of the most reliably streamed titles the company owns between October and Christmas every year. Belloni’s argument was that restarting the franchise would pay out across a decade rather than a single opening weekend.
The 1990 original made roughly 476 million dollars worldwide and finished as the second highest grossing film of that year. Culkin returned for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1992 and then left. Four more films followed without him, ending with Home Sweet Home Alone on Disney+ in 2021, which landed at 15 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The franchise still performs as a library title and not much else, which is the gap Culkin’s return would close.
The Complications
Chris Columbus, who directed the first two films, has been publicly cool on revisiting them and has said you cannot really recapture the original. There is also the Wet Bandits problem, since a Home Alone film without Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern is a different product, and neither has been mentioned here.
Culkin has been more visible lately, turning up in Fallout’s second season, American Horror Story and Zootopia 2, so the reluctance that kept him away for 34 years appears to have eased. Whether it has eased enough to sign is the open question.
It fits a wider pattern of Disney going back through its own shelves, with a live-action Tangled currently aimed at 2028.
For the latest news and updates make sure to follow us on social media! Facebook | Twitter | Threads | Instagram
