‘Home Alone’ director Chris Columbus explains how the McCallisters were able to afford that house

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Audiences have wondered for years how the family in “Home Alone” was able to afford their beautiful Chicago-area home and now we know.

Chris Columbus, the director of the film, recently told The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast that he and the late producer John Hughes had a conversation about the backstory of the parents in “Home Alone,” Kate McCallister, played by Catherine O’Hara, and Peter McAllister, played by John Heard.

“Back then, John and I had a conversation about it, and we decided on what the jobs were,” Columbus said.

O’Hara’s Kate “was a very successful fashion designer,” as suggested by the mannequins in the family’s basement, according to Columbus, while he said he was unsure about Heard’s Peter.

“The father could have, based on John Hughes’ own experience, worked in advertising, but I don’t remember what the father did,” Columbus said.

The beloved 1990 holiday film stars a young Macaulay Culkin as a little boy named Kevin who accidentally gets left home alone during Christmas and has to deal with a pair of would-be burglars

Hughes died at the age of 59 in 2009 following a heart attack. Heard died in 2017 at the age of 71 after he reportedly suffered from cardiac arrest.

Columbus, who most recently produced the new horror film “Nosferatu,” was clear that a fan theory suggesting the criminals in the movie, played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, were attracted to burglarizing the home because the patriarch was involved in crime himself, is inaccurate.

“Not organized crime — even though there was, at the time, a lot of organized crime in Chicago [which is where the movie is set],” the director said.

The Georgian-style property boasting five bedrooms and six bathrooms in the Chicago suburbs made headlines last year after it hit the market with a cool $5.25 million asking price.

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