Home Alone 2: Lost in New York facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Chris Columbus
Produced by	John Hughes
Written by	John Hughes
Starring	Macaulay Culkin Joe Pesci Daniel Stern John Heard Tim Curry Brenda Fricker Catherine O'Hara
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Editing by	Raja Gosnell
Studio	Hughes Entertainment
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	November 20, 1992 (1992-11-20)
Running time	120 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$28 million
Money made	$359 million

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is a 1992 American Christmas comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes. The sequel to the 1990 film Home Alone and the second film in the Home Alone franchise, the film stars Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, Tim Curry, Brenda Fricker, and Catherine O'Hara. It follows Kevin McCallister (Culkin), as he is separated from his family on their holiday vacation in Florida, this time in New York City.

Hughes finished writing the film by February 1991, after signing a six-picture deal with 20th Century Fox. Culkin's return was confirmed in May, and the rest of the cast was finalized soon after. Principal photography took place between December 1991 and May 1992, and was done on location in Illinois and New York, including at the Rockefeller Center and the original World Trade Center.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was theatrically released in the United States by 20th Century Fox on November 20, 1992. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the performances, but criticism for its darker tone, use of violence and similarities to the first film. The film grossed over $359 million worldwide, becoming the third highest-grossing film of 1992. A sequel with a new cast, Home Alone 3, was released in 1997.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is the last Home Alone movie to feature the cast from the first film. However, Devin Ratray reprised his role as Buzz McCallister in the sixth film in the franchise, Home Sweet Home Alone.

Plot

The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Miami, and gathers at Peter and Kate's Chicago home. Their youngest son, Kevin, views Florida as contradictory to Christmas, due to its tropical climate and lack of Christmas trees. At a school pageant, during Kevin's solo, his older brother Buzz pranks him; Kevin retaliates by pushing him, which causes all the singers to fall and so ruins the pageant. At home, Buzz makes a false apology, which the family accepts, berating Kevin when he says he retaliated for Buzz humiliating him. Kevin insults his family for believing his brother's lies and for spending Christmas in a tropical climate, and storms off to the attic, wishing to have his own vacation alone. When the family accidentally oversleeps, they rush to the airport, only to be sure Kevin is with them. At the airport, Kevin loses pace with his family while holding his father's bag. Kevin follows a man with an identical coat to Peter's, thinking he is with his dad. Kevin accidentally follows the man onto a flight to New York City. Upon arriving, Kevin decides to tour the city and in Central Park, Kevin is frightened by a stern-looking homeless woman tending to pigeons. He then goes to the Plaza Hotel and uses Peter's credit card to check in. The Wet Bandits, who escaped from prison during a riot, have also arrived in New York.

On Christmas Eve, Kevin visits a toy store where he meets its philanthropic owner, Mr. Duncan. Kevin donates cash after learning that the proceeds from the store's Christmas sales will be donated to a children's hospital. As a token of appreciation, Mr. Duncan offers Kevin a pair of ceramic turtledoves as a gift, instructing him to give one to another person as a gesture of eternal friendship. At the Plaza, the concierge confronts Kevin about the stolen credit card. Kevin escapes via the service exit, only to be met by the Wet Bandits. Marv boasts about the plan to rob Duncan's toy store and kill him, but Kevin escapes after an encounter with a passerby.

Earlier, upon landing in Miami, the McCallister family discover that Kevin is missing and file a police report. After the police trace Peter's credit card, the family flies immediately to New York. Meanwhile, Kevin goes to his uncle's townhouse, only to find it vacant and undergoing renovations. In Central Park, Kevin encounters and eventually befriends the pigeon lady. They go to Carnegie Hall, where she explains how her life collapsed when her lover left her; Kevin encourages her to trust people again. After considering her advice that he perform a good deed to make up for his misdeeds, he decides to prevent Harry and Marv from robbing the toy store, motivated after seeing a young child patient in a window at the children's wing of the Beth Israel Hospital and recalling Mr. Duncan's words about the donation money.

Having rigged the townhouse with booby traps, Kevin visits the toy store during Harry and Marv's robbery, takes their picture, and breaks the store's window to set off the alarm. He then lures them to the townhouse, where they spring the traps and suffer various injuries. While the duo searches for Kevin outside of the townhouse, he calls the police using a payphone, and leads Harry and Marv into Central Park, where they capture him after he falls on ice. As Harry holds Kevin at gunpoint, the pigeon lady intervenes, tossing a bucket of birdseed onto Harry and Marv, attracting a massive flock of pigeons that incapacitate them. Kevin then sets off fireworks to signal the police, who scare off the pigeons with a gunshot and arrest Harry and Marv, with Kevin providing enough evidence against them to lock them up for good. At the toy store, Mr. Duncan finds a note from Kevin, explaining the robbery. The family arrives in New York, and Kate, remembering Kevin's fondness for Christmas trees, finds him making a wish at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.

On Christmas morning, a truckload of free gifts arrives at the McCallisters' hotel room, sent from a grateful Mr. Duncan for foiling the robbery. Kevin reconciles with his family, and goes to Central Park to give the pigeon lady the second turtledove, cementing their friendship.

Cast

Production

In February 1991, the Los Angeles Times reported that John Hughes was to sign a six-picture deal with 20th Century Fox, among the projects was a sequel to Home Alone. In May 1991, Culkin was paid $4.5 million plus 5 percent of the film's gross to appear in the sequel, compared to $110,000 for the original. The production budget was $28 million.

Principal photography took place from December 9, 1991 to May 1, 1992, over a course of 144 days; the film was shot in Winnetka, Illinois; O'Hare International Airport in Chicago; Evanston, Illinois; and New York City. According to the director, Chris Columbus, Donald Trump, the owner of the Plaza Hotel at the time, allowed the crew to shoot scenes in the hotel lobby in exchange for a cameo in the film in addition to the standard fee for film productions. In 2021, Culkin endorsed a petition to edit out Trump's cameo, when he replied to a tweet asking to digitally replace Trump with an older rendition of Culkin.

Music

John Williams returned to score Home Alone 2. While the film featured the first film's theme song "Somewhere in My Memory", it also contained its own theme entitled "Christmas Star". Two soundtrack albums of the film were released on November 20, 1992, with one featuring Williams' score and the other featuring contemporary Christmas songs featured in the film. Ten years later, a 2-disc Deluxe Edition of the film score soundtrack was released.

Release

Marketing

Numerous video games based on Home Alone 2 were released by THQ for such systems as the Sega Genesis, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy and personal computers, mostly in late 1992. A separate hand-held game was released by Tiger Electronics. Numerous board games were also released, some based around play cards, while another was a close emulation of the classic Mouse Trap.

The Talkboy cassette recorder was produced as a tie-in for the movie by Tiger Electronics based on specifications provided by John Hughes and the movie studio, and sold particularly well after the film was released on home video. Additional promotional partners included American Airlines in which the McCallisters make their trip on the airline's two Boeing 767-200s, the Coca-Cola Company, Jack in the Box, Hardee's, and Roy Rogers Restaurants.

Home media

The film was first released by Fox Video on VHS and LaserDisc on July 27, 1993. It was later released on DVD on October 5, 1999 as a basic package. The film was released on Blu-ray on October 6, 2009 with no special features, and was released alongside Home Alone in a collection pack on October 5, 2010. The film was reissued again on DVD and Blu-ray on October 6, 2015, alongside all five Home Alone franchise films, titled Home Alone: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Christmas Edition.

Other media

Sequels

A third film with a new cast, Home Alone 3, followed in 1997. Two television movies, Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House and Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, aired in 2002 and 2012, respectively. Home Sweet Home Alone, the sixth film in the series, was released in 2021.

Novelization

Home Alone 2 was novelized by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1992 to coincide with the film. The "point" version, which has the same storyline, was also novelized by A.L. Singer. It has an ISBN of 0-590-45717-9. An audiobook version was also released read by Tim Curry (who played the concierge in the film).

As in the novelization of the first film, the McCallisters live in Oak Park, Illinois and the crooks are named as Harry Lime and Marv Murchins. The novel also takes place one year after the events of the first film, but the ages of Kevin and his siblings are given as being two years older than the first film.

In the beginning of the novelization, a prologue, which ends up being Marv's nightmare in prison, he and Harry sneak away from the cops and return to Kevin's house to seek revenge on Kevin. Kevin bolts into the garage with Marv and Harry in hot pursuit. Harry and Marv end up triggering extra traps that Kevin had set up in the garage. Kevin watches as Marv ends up triggering a trap where a running lawnmower falls on his head (this was a trap featured in Home Alone 3).

See also

In Spanish: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York para niños