8 Fun Facts About Beloved 1990 Holiday Comedy Film 'Home Alone'

It's been over 30 years since we saw Macaulay Culkin play Kevin McCallister who was separated from his family and had to ward off bumbling burglars Marv and Harry while home alone during Christmas time. Now, no holiday movie marathon is complete without a viewing of Home Alone, a '90s classic. Let's take a look at some fun facts you might now know about the film, as per Salon and Insider.

1. The role of Kevin McCallister was written specifically for Macaulay Culkin.

Director Chris Columbus may have auditioned 100 other preteens but the role was written for Culkin who ended up nailing the role.

2. Culkin's younger brother appeared in the movie.

Kieran appeared as Kevin's cousin, Fuller in the first film and they appeared together in the sequel as well.

3.  The film was written in just over a week.

It John Hughes just 9 days to draft the script during a family trip. "I was going away on vacation,'" Hughes told Time magazine in 1990, "and making a list of everything I didn't want to forget. I thought, 'Well, I'd better not forget my kids.' Then I thought, 'What if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do?'"

4. Robert De Niro was considered for the role of Harry

Robert De Niro never seriously considered playing the part according to Columbus.  "It was talked about a little internally, but when Pesci said yes, I was stunned," he told Insider

5. Culkin improvised one of the most iconic scenes in the movie

"If you put something on your face that burns, most people move their hands right away. So my direction to him was when you pat your face, move your hands and scream. And I think it was the first take, he kept his hands on his cheeks," the director told Insider. He added, "It's funny, the iconic moment from Home Alone was an accident."

6. Casting Culkin taught Chris Columbus a very important lesson.

The moviemaker learned that when you agree to work with a child actor, you're also agreeing to work with their family. "I was much younger and I was really too naive to think about the family environment as well," Columbus told The Guardian in 2013. "We didn't know that much about the family at the beginning; as we were shooting, we learned a little more. The stories are hair-raising. I was casting a kid who truly had a troubled family life."

7.  People thought Angels With Filthy Souls is a real movie

It isn't! Kevin uses a black-and-white gangster movie called Angels With Filthy Souls as his inspiration to defend himself against the Wet Bandits which was specifically made for Home Alone.

8. Home Alone was a Guinness world record holder for more than 25 years. 

The film topped the box office, making $17,081,997 in 1202 theaters, and later became the highest-grossing film of 1990 and earned a Guinness World Record as the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever domestically. It held for 27 years but lost the spot to Chinese blockbuster Never Say Die in 2017.