Lansing Born John Hughes – and the Deal He Made With John Candy
Next year the first Home Alone movie will be thirty years old. And still stories are coming out about what happened behind the scenes of that movie.
John Hughes (who was born in Lansing, MI) was the guy who wrote and produced Home Alone. John was friends with actor John Candy. The two had already worked with each other on National Lampoon's Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, The Great Outdoors and Uncle Buck. According to FilmStories, when it came time to film Home Alone, John Hughes offered his friend a piece of the action. John Candy's part as Gus - "The Polka King of the Midwest", was small and nobody knew the movie would be such a huge hit, so Candy told Hughes that he would do the movie at scale, as a favor to him. The filming took 22 hours out of John Candy's life and he got paid $414 - the minimum union payment for that time.
I don't know what percentage Candy was offered, but he was a big star at the time. Let's say he got offered 3% of the gross profits (Tom Cruise and Will Smith sometimes get 20-30%, but this was a smaller role).
Home Alone grossed $476 million.
Under my scenario, John could've made around $14,000,000. Instead, he probably made enough to pay the bar tab for a night out, while on location.
Remember that when you're watching Home Alone with the family.