How rich were the McCallisters in ‘Home Alone’?

The battle in Home Alone between 8-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) and two burglars known as the Wet Bandits has been shown on screens around the world every Christmas since the film premiered in 1990.

And every year, the McCallisters’ grand home and lifestyle inspires some viewers with a tradition of their own: wondering just how wealthy this family was.

The New York Times turned to economists and people involved with the film to find the answer.

The McCallisters are the 1 Percent.

Early in the film, one of the burglars, Harry (Joe Pesci), tells his fellow Wet Bandit, Marv (Daniel Stern), that the McCallister house is their main target in a wealthy neighborhood.

“That’s it, Marv, that’s the silver tuna,” Harry says, before speculating that the house contains many “top goods,” including VCRs, stereos, very fine jewelry, and “strange marketable securities.”

The house is the best clue to how much money the McCallisters have.

The Silver Tuna, or at least its exterior, is a real house at 671 Lincoln Avenue in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the United States. according to Realtor.com. It appears to have enough space for Kevin and his four siblings to each have their own room, as well as accommodate an army of visitors.

In 1990, housing was only affordable for the top 1 percent of household incomes in Chicago, and that would still be the case today, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

The economists – Max Gillet, a senior research analyst; Cindy Hull, assistant vice president and interim head of the financial markets group; and Thomas Walstrum, a senior business economist, came to this conclusion after looking at data including household incomes in the Chicago metropolitan statistical area for 1990 and 2022, home values, then-current mortgage rates and typical taxes and insurance.

Assuming the McCallisters spent no more than 30 percent of their income on housing, the economists also determined that the house would have been affordable for a household with an income of $305,000 in 1990 (about $665,000 in 2022).

By mid-2022, a similar home would cost about $2.4 million, based on… Zillow estimate for the house “Home Alone”.. A home of that value would be affordable to a household with an income of $730,000, which would be in the top 1 percent of households in the Chicago region, the economists said.

How are they so rich?

In ‘Home Alone’ it is never explained what the parents do for work.

On the Internet, where this question pops up frequently, some people have suggested that Kate McCallister is a fashion designer, as there are several mannequins in the house, which are later seen in one of Kevin’s attempts to trick the burglars into thinking that he is in fact isn’t. , home alone.

Todd Strasser, who wrote the official novelizations of “Home Alone” and two of its sequels, said in an interview that he was not closely monitored by the filmmakers. The guidance, he said, was essentially: “Here’s the script, do whatever you want.”

So in the book he made Kevin’s mother a fashion designer, because of the mannequins, and Kevin’s father a businessman, because it was “a safe bet,” he said.

He said it never occurred to him to explain in detail how the McCallisters got their money; he thought they belonged to the ‘upper middle class’, but not to the ‘super rich’.

The family has other marks of considerable but not stratospheric wealth: they wear nice clothes and rent multiple vans to take them to the airport, yes, but when Kate tries to bribe an elderly couple into giving up their tickets from Paris, she can come home, she offers jewelry and cash, but indicates that her Rolex may be fake.

“I don’t know how much the McCallisters made, but it sure did a lot for my bank account,” Strasser said.

One fan theory states that Peter McCallister is involved in organized crime. According to this theory, the McCallister home was specifically targeted in some sort of revenge attack, and Kevin’s brutal violence against the burglars is the product of an upbringing exposed to criminal activity.

The Times could not rule out this theory.

Uncle Rob paid for the flights.

An often cited data point about the family’s wealth is their Christmas trip to Paris.

Flying to Paris with 15 people is expensive, especially because the four adults fly first class, but Kevin’s parents don’t pay for the plane tickets. Early in the movieKate McCallister tells a police officer – who is actually Harry in disguise – that her husband’s brother paid for the flights.

That brother is Uncle Rob. He’s a minor figure in the first film, but the few mentions he gets suggest he’s loaded. He pays for the tickets, and he has an apartment in Paris with a clear view of the Eiffel Tower and can somehow accommodate fifteen of his relatives. (The sequel to the film, “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” further suggests that Uncle Rob is rich, but this analysis is based only on the first film.)

A third brother, Uncle Frank (the mean one), lives in Ohio and travels with the family from Illinois to Paris. We don’t learn anything about his income, but we do know he’s cheap. At his brother’s house in Illinois, he avoids paying the $122.50 pizza bill. On the plane, while dining in first class, he tells his wife to put the crystal glasses in her bag.

This behavior could indicate that he is rich. According to a 2008 article published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Uncle Frank is also a quintessential adult character in the world of John Hughes, who wrote and produced “Home Alone.” Robert Bulmana professor of sociology at Saint Mary’s College of California who studies the representation of teens and high schoolers in film.

He said a common feature of a Hughes film is dramatic tension, fueled by conflict between young people and adults, which almost always ends in the young person’s favor.

He noted that in Hughes’ teen films — including “The Breakfast Club” and “Pretty in Pink” — class tensions also tend to be prominent and move the story forward.

“For example, his stories tend to privilege the perspective of the working-class child or the poor child trying to gain access to a wealthier group of peers,” Professor Bulman said. “But in ‘Home Alone’ it is undeniably a victory for Kevin as a child, but also for Kevin as a rich kid defending his impressive fortress.”

The film is not about the money.

Eve Cauley, the set designer of ‘Home Alone’, was responsible for the set, such as the furniture and wallpaper in the McCallister house, which was filmed on built-in sets in a local high school.

She said in an email that the house was not expensively furnished, but had a deliberately “stately, luxurious appearance.”

When the film was made, navy blue and dusty pink were popular interior colors, Cauley said. But she was inspired by Norman Rockwell paintings and antique Christmas cards to use saturated reds, greens and golds in the family home.

Hughes told her he wanted the house to have a “timeless look,” she said. “He told me that he likes his films to look a little nicer and neater than reality, as his goal in making films is to entertain and uplift the audience,” she said.

Cauley also had some advice for those looking for an answer about household income.

“To me, with respect, fans who argue about parents’ incomes or house costs should just enjoy the movie instead,” she said.

“After all, John Hughes and director Christopher Columbus created this heartwarming and comedic film as entertainment for audiences to brighten the spirits for the holidays. It has raised spirits and continues to do so.”