Home Sweet Home Alone Director Speaks Out on Reviving the Holiday Classic

Reviving an iconic franchise is never easy, but it’s a challenge the creative team of Disney’s Home Sweet Home Alone tackled head on. 1990’s Home Alone remains one of the most beloved films in history, so there was a lot for director Dan Mazer and his crew to live up to. They had to find a way to honor the legacy of what came before while also telling something new and original. 

Mazer sat down with ComicBook.com ahead of Home Sweet Home Alone‘s debut on Disney+, and he talked about the challenge of bringing something as important as Home Alone back to the screen. The legacy is always going to hang over the head of anything new, so Mazer focused on the script and simply attempted to do something bold.

“Obviously it’s one of the most beloved films of our generation and the legacy of that obviously weighed relatively heavy,” Mazer explained. “I remember as we were just about to get ready to shoot, that Netflix series, The Movies That Made Us, came out. And they chose four movies from history to say, ‘These are the most iconic movies,’ and Home Alone was one of them. It was like, ‘Oh, okay. Really? Okay, good. No pressure there then.’” 

“But the truth is that, in my career, such as it is – 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 continued. “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.”

There’s no replacing Home Alone, so it’s a good thing that isn’t what Mazer and his team attempted to do. What did you think of the movie? Let us know in the comments!

You can watch the full interview with Dan Mazer in the video at the top of the page.