Three of the movies in the Home Alone franchise are dominating Disney+’s top 10. According to FlixPatrol, Home Sweet Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and Home Alone are all holding strong in the rankings. (May we all sit and have a moment to reflect on the fact that Home Alone 3 is not hereย for some reason.) But, Disney has to be loving the fact that one of their recent releases is showing some staying power on the app. Not easy to do when there is an entire ocean of holiday content from the company’s extensive history at a moment’s notice. It also has to please decision-makers that one of the big movie franchises from the 20th Century Studios acquisition is doing all of this with relatively little marketing. Now, Christmas is a different beast when it comes to people turning into films. There are multiple channels on basic cable and some streaming services with dedicated programming set up for each December.
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Comicbook.com previously spoke with Home Sweet Home Alone director Dan Mazer about picking up such a stories mantle. The filmmaker knows exactly what he’s walking into.
“Obviously it’s one of the most beloved films of our generation and the legacy of that obviously weighed relatively heavy,” Mazer said. “I remember as we were just about to get ready to shoot, that Netflix series,ย The Movies That Made Us, came out. And they chose four movies from history to say, ‘These are the most iconic movies,’ andย Home Aloneย was one of them. It was like, ‘Oh, okay. Really? Okay, good. No pressure there then.’”ย
“But the truth is that, in my career, such as it is โ if you can call it such a thing. If in the loose collection of films that I happen to have made, the one thing that I’m sort of resolute about is taking risks and trying things that feel a bit dangerous and probably a bit foolish,” the filmmaker added. “I wanted to take this on, not least because when I was given the script by Streeter [Seidell] and Mikey [Day], I just thought it was brilliant and I thought it was really funny. I thought it paid homage to the original without seeming like just a retread. It felt fresh, it felt new, it felt relevant, it felt like it was coming from a different perspective, and above all else, it was just really funny and really emotional and really effective. It worked as a story and as a filmmaker, as a director, that’s all that I look for. And to me it’s very rare. So I tried to put the pressure of the legacy slightly behind me and concentrate on what was on the page.”
Are you watching Home Alone this weekend? Let us know in the comments!ย