Over the years, Home Alone fans have gotten glimpses of Macaulay Culkin, as he sometimes appears in commercials or talks about the movie that brought him so much fame. Culkin was in a Google commercial with a Home Alone theme and there is even talk that he will be in the Disney reboot of the popular movie. That would be a lot of fun to see.
There are many classic holiday films that fans love, from Christmas Vacation starring Randy Quaid to Gremlins. Nothing is as popular as Home Alone, though, as the story of a young boy's family abandoning him over Christmas when they accidentally leave for the airport without him is still so charming and funny. Kevin McAllister thinks that he's won the lottery as he can eat junk food for dinner (like a massive sundae, his favorite). Of course, things aren't that easy and he also has to fight off some truly bad guys.
Macaulay Culkin became a wealthy child star, and before he took a break from Hollywood, what was he paid for this iconic holiday film?
A $100,000 Paycheque
Joe Pesci is perfect as a criminal in Home Alone and fans are eager for stories about this family-friendly film.
Macaulay Culkin was paid $100,000 to star in Home Alone. According to Express.co.uk, he made quite a lot more for the sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, as he was paid $4.5 million.
Culkin has a net worth of $18 million. According to Celebrity Net Worth, he stopped acting at the end of the 1990s but while he was a working child actor, he was among the stars who were getting paid the most.
Before Home Alone, he was paid $40,000 for the movie Uncle Buck, which was written and directed by John Hughes and came out in 1989. He was paid $1 million for the tearjerker My Girl which was released in 1991, and his pay kept going up, as he was paid $8 million for the movies Ri¢hie Ri¢h and Getting Even With Dad, both released in 1994. That's a huge amount of money for a child to make.
An Esquire story about Culkin from February 2020 talks about how his trust fund was said to be between $15 million and $20 million when he was a child, and because his parents were splitting up and trying to get custody of the children, it was a huge mess. He shared, "I legally took my parents’ names off of my trust fund and found an executor, someone who would look over my finances." He continued, "Look, I mean, it sucks. But: It coulda been worse, you know?"
Culkin's Thoughts On Acting
Since Culkin took a break from acting, it's interesting to think about what he really thinks about this creative endeavor since so much has been said about him taking a step away from Hollywood.
He shared with Esquire that the way he thinks about acting is like the movie The Shawshank Redemption. He said, "I enjoy acting. I enjoy being on set. I don’t enjoy a lot of the other things that come around it." He continued that the character has to "crawl through a tube" of horrible stuff to leave prison. He says that he wants "freedom" but he has to deal with some not so great things before that. He explained, "And you know what? I’ve built a really nice prison for myself. It’s soft. It’s sweet. It smells nice. You know? It’s plush.”
In 2018, Culkin went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and said about his status as a former child star, “I felt like some kid worked really, really hard and I inherited all of his money. It allows me to treat everything like a hobby. I do nothing for my dinner nowadays. I can do all kinds of projects that I want to do.“
According to Indiewire, Culkin participated in an AMA on Reddit and shared that he likes Home Alone rather than the sequel. He said, “The first one was more fun because we didn’t know what we were walking into and it was a lot less flying all over the place. It was all in Chicago."
Today, Culkin is 40 years old and according to Esquire, in a serious relationship with actress Brenda Strong. It sounds like they live a very nice life together after meeting on the set of the movie Changeland. Culkin told the publication, "I want for nothing and need for even less. I’m good, man.” With both love and the security of having money in the bank, it sounds like Culkin is doing really well, and fans of Home Alone are so happy about that.