Uncle Buck (film): The film that made Home Alone
It's the Christmas Season and almost certainly Macaulay Culkin is getting his annual paycheck for the only film he ever really needed to be in to live a pretty comfortable life forevermore. It is worth knowing that had it not been for his supporting role in a movie made just one year earlier, it is very conceivable that he would not have been cast in the iconic Christmas film that is Home Alone, and that movie was Uncle Buck.
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Ol' Culkin, worried about who is on the other side of a front door
Macaulay was not the star of this movie, John Candy, who was one of the biggest comedy stars in the late 80's and was consequently box-office gold, was. His films would regularly require only $10-20 million to produce and would, like clockwork, bring in 2 to 3 times that much with little to no marketing.
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It seemed he could do no wrong and Uncle Buck was one of those situations. You see, this is not a great film and a lot of the comedy is dependent upon silly situations such as his interaction with teenagers where they are inexplicably terrified of him despite the fact that he is not an imposing physical force.
However, his interactions with young child actors Gaby Hoffmann and of course Macaulay Culkin, is where this film truly shines. I think that Culkin must have been really easy to work with because he really impressed director John Hughes who would just one year later, go on to write and produce Home Alone which was written specifically for Macaulay.
In a bit of role-reversal John Candy's role in Home Alone was completed in one day and he was paid a mere $414 for his involvement (it was done as a favor for John Hughes.)
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I suppose Uncle Buck could be considered decent but if you were going to seek out a John Candy movie to watch, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is the crème de la crème IMO.
from the official Movieclips channel
So there you have it. If it weren't for this film there might have either not been a Home Alone or a different person starring in it because even though the film was written with Macaulay specifically, director Chris Colombus still auditioned over 100 other child actors just to make sure. There are other factors as well but even John Hughes admitted that Uncle Buck was a "trial run" of sorts to see how working with Macaulay was gonna be.
A quick question, does the annual cheque apply to every actor? I want to understand something. And I didn't know that this is what happens so please forgive me for asking.
Planes was something. Not sure if I watched the rest xD
royalty checks have to be built into the contract of the particular actor. I don't even know if Culkin had something like that in his but usually with christmas movies actors tend to get that because of the obvious benefits of a movie that will play every year if it is successful.
Aha. It now makes sense. Because I have always wondered how they earn years later after similar cases of one hit wonders.
That's really interesting.
I thought it was on TV show actors that got royalties.
the more i look into it, there might not be any residuals for Caulkin on this movie but it is all private and he doesn't talk about it. it is probably more likely that he arranged royalties or residuals for Home Alone 2 because he was already an established box-office sensation at that point.
I loved Uncle Buck, anyway Culkinjust fits the role, I think it was truly meant for him. Your reviews are quite inspiring I am building my content in hue of that.
i miss john candy, really enjoyed his stuff, i didn't know home alone was written specifically for culkin? no wonder it ended up working out so well $$
he wasn't even paid very much. well, i suppose when you are 12 and you make 100k that is a lot, but compared to his salary on future films it was quite small.
John Candy was fantastic, and he died not longer after this movie was made actually.
Nice to know about this! I really enjoyed this film a lot!
I am a fan of John Candy, it is really too bad that he was taken so soon. I think part of what makes Planes Trains and Automobiles so awesome is Steve Martin. If it were not for him, it might not be as good of a movie. In my opinion of course. I like Uncle Buck, but if I was going to pick a favorite Candy movie it would probably be The Great Outdoors. It was predictable and stupid, but it is always a fun movie to watch and one of the ones that we always stop on the channel if we are flipping through and it happens to be on.