Hollywood has always struggled to make child-friendly content. Even films like Minions or Coco, while technically aimed at younger viewers, contain the kind of jokes and themes that are better appreciated by adults. One of the few times Hollywood managed to make a legitimate franchise out of a live-action child-friendly story was the Home Alone series.

The first movie in the franchise was released in 1990, and it says much about the longevity of the series that it is still considered a cinema classic, more than three decades later, along with Home Alone 2. But despite the critical and commercial acclaim of the first two Home Alone movies, the subsequent sequels garnered increasingly diminishing returns. Let’s take a look at why this happened for a series that started out with so much promise.

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A Star Is Born in Home Alone

     20th Century Studios

Despite the presence of an excellent cast of adult actors, the success of the original Home Alone is seen to rest entirely on the shoulders of its central protagonist Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, in one of cinema’s most iconic roles. The movie made an overnight star out of its tween lead actor, and Culkin in turn imbued the movie with an old-school innocent charm that few others could have hoped to rival.

The problem with this close bond between Culkin and the Home Alone franchise is that for many fans it is impossible to separate one from the other. After Culkin inevitably matured and grew out of his role as the adorable little hero of the series (becoming an alternative rocker), the studio’s attempts to create new Home Alone stories centering around fresh child actors ended up feeling like knock-off versions of what had come before.

Changing Sensibilities

     Sony Pictures

Imagine a film premise for a moment. An eight-year-old child has been left abandoned at home by his family. A couple of hardened criminals break into the child’s home and proceed to do everything in their power to capture and punish him. The child has no adults to turn to, and can only use the meager resources in his home to take a stand against the intruders.

This is the basic premise of Home Alone, and in today’s world, it reads like a horror movie, not a children’s film. The truth is, the world is a very different place today from where it was when the first Home Alone was released. In the past two decades, the public has seen too many found-footage and slasher horror movies depicting all the nasty things that happen to someone trapped in a house alone with an intruder to feel anything but fear and concern for the character in such a scenario.

Uninspired Home Alone Remakes

     Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Considering the immense success of the Home Alone movies starring Macaulay Culkin, it was natural for the studio to try to recreate that success with a new batch of stars. Thus was born Home Alone 3, Home Alone 4, Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, and the latest 2021 offering Home Sweet Home Alone. Each movie tried to stick to the formula of the original two to varying degrees.

Unfortunately, the movies did not seem to have any ideas beyond sticking to the formula. And that proved to be a problem since they offered nothing fresh to the franchise for a new generation of audiences to fall in love with. Turns out it takes more to make a good Home Alone movie than simply having a kid foil burglary attempts using an outrageous collection of home defense tools.

A Different Age

Aside from the Home Alone formula being difficult to replicate, there is also the fact that it can be hard to imagine such a film in today’s climate as anything other than a straight-up horror flick. The original films have a certain innocence that feels like they belong to a different, more mellow age of filmmaking. This is a sentiment that Joe Pesci, who starred in the original Home Alone movies, seems to share.

“I think that it would be difficult to replicate not only the success but also the overall innocence of the [original Home Alone films],” Pesci told People (via CBR). “It’s a different time now; attitudes and priorities have changed in 30 years.” As the actor points out, the attitudes of audiences have undergone a seismic shift, and it can no longer be seen as a laughing matter to show a tween being abandoned by his family and needing to fend off criminals.

Then there is the fact that today’s era of digital monitoring and round-the-clock connectivity via social media means the idea that a kid could stay out of contact with his family or other grown-ups for any length of time no longer feels believable. Perhaps it is time to stop milking the Home Alone franchise through more and more remakes/sequels, and simply enjoy the original films as a snapshot of an old-fashioned point in time for cinema and the world.