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Home Alone: The Holiday Heist | |
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Based on | Home Alone by John Hughes |
Written by |
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Directed by | Peter Hewitt |
Starring | |
Music by | David Kitay |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | Kim Todd |
Cinematography | Peter Benison |
Editor | John Coniglio |
Running time | 90 minutes |
Production company | Fox Television Studios |
Budget | $11 million [1] |
Original release | |
Network | ABC Family |
Release | November 25, 2012 |
Related | |
Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (also known as Home Alone 5: The Holiday Heist or simply Home Alone 5) is a 2012 American made-for-television Christmas comedy film directed by Peter Hewitt. It is the fifth installment in the Home Alone franchise. It stars Christian Martyn, Jodelle Ferland, Malcolm McDowell, Debi Mazar, and Eddie Steeples. The film premiered on ABC Family (now Freeform) on November 25, 2012, during the network's annual Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas programming block. [2] [3] It is the second film, after Home Alone 3 , not to focus on the McCallister family, although there are numerous homages to the previous films. Home Alone: The Holiday Heist received mainly negative reviews, although it fared better than the fourth film.
The Baxter family move from California to Rockland, Maine and settle into their new house during the Christmas season. 10-year-old Finn Baxter (Christian Martyn) and his older sister Alexis (Jodelle Ferland) are technophiles who isolate themselves from their parents Curtis (Doug Murray) and Catherine (Ellie Harvie) and the outside world. Finn is often playing video games and Alexis is often on her phone and computer. Encouraged by his dad to socialize, Finn befriends his neighbor Mason (Peter DaCunha) who informs him about the legend of a smothered gangster whose ghost haunts the Baxters' new home, leaving Finn paranoid.
While the family leaves their home to go Christmas shopping, a group of thieves consisting of Sinclair (Malcolm McDowell), Jessica (Debi Mazar), and their new safecracker Hughes (Eddie Steeples) carry out their plan to break in and steal an old, long lost Edvard Munch painting valued at $85 million, unaware the house is occupied. They are unable to locate the painting in the basement safe. As the Baxters return home, the thieves quickly flee. At night, Curtis and Catherine leave for a Christmas party hosted by Catherine's new boss, Mr. Carson (Ed Asner). Finn and Alexis stay behind due to their petty behavior, Finn is not permitted to play video games and Alexis can only use her phone for emergency calls.
That night, the thieves plan to return, thinking the house will be clear. Sinclair confides in Jessica and Hughes that the painting they seek is The Widow, a portrait of his great-grandmother and her family that was stolen decades ago. Meanwhile, Finn adventures in the house and finds a spare controller. Searching for new batteries, he accidentally drops one into the basement. Finn has Alexis accompany him to retrieve it and they find the safe unlocked and a secret room behind it, which houses the painting Sinclair is looking for. Frightened by the portrait, Finn flees and Alexis accidentally triggers a trap and ends up locked in the room.
As an ongoing snowstorm worsens, Curtis and Catherine are forced to stay at the Christmas party, worrying about their kids at home. With Alexis locked behind the safe, Finn goes shopping for supplies at a hardware store to break her out, only being able to afford string. After stumbling across Sinclair, he overhears the trio discuss plans to break into his house. Rushing home, Finn tells his online friend Simon (Bill Turnbull) about the situation. Finn sets up numerous booby traps around the house. The thieves are forced to go through the booby traps, getting injured as they do so, with the glamorous Jessica getting covered in tar. Soon enough, Curtis and Catherine are able to drive home. Using Finn's gamertag and his parents' credit card details, a concerned Simon contacts them to warn about the danger their kids are in, but they suspect him and call the police on him instead.
Back at the house, Sinclair, Jessica, and Hughes capture Finn and detain him in their SUV. Sinclair and Hughes go to open the safe. Mason, however, saves Finn by throwing snowballs at the leather-clad Jessica, who is now very disheveled. She is eventually knocked out by the snowballs.
Meanwhile, Sinclair and Hughes gain entry to the safe, finding the painting and Alexis, who threatens to destroy it. Finn flees and frees Alexis while triggering the trap that locks the duo in the basement, which is seen on Simon's television by the police officers who detained him. With Mason having encased Jessica up to her neck within a headless snowman, the police arrive to arrest the intruders. The family receives four museum passes and $30,000 as a reward for capturing the fugitives and recovering the painting. As an apology, Finn's parents send Simon a plane ticket to return home and spend Christmas with his family.
On Christmas Day, Finn receives a snowboard and an expansion pack to "Robo Infantry 3". Alexis gets a tablet computer, and Finn and his dad get a camping guide. Finn decides to take a break from video games and go snowboarding with Mason, now his best friend. The final scene shows the offenders having their mug shots taken at the police station as a female police officer splices a copy of the mug shots into a portrait.
Originally titled Home Alone: Alone in the Dark, development for the film began in March 2012 as a co-production between ABC Family and Fox TV Studios. [4] Both companies also co-produced Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House in 2002.
The television film was released on DVD on October 29, 2013, in the United States and Canada. It was released in Region 4 on November 12, 2014. [6] In Region 2, the film was released in 2013 but was initially only available on downloads and online streaming and its distribution there remains mainly focused on those formats.[ clarification needed ] On November 2, 2015, the film was released on DVD in the United Kingdom as part of a box set of the first five Home Alone films exclusively on Amazon.co.uk. [7]
The film grossed $996,000 in home video sales. [8]
In November 2020, Disney began to feature the original Home Alone trilogy on their streaming platform service Disney+ in celebration of the first film's 30th anniversary. The fourth and fifth installments were released on HBO Max [9] and were added to Disney+ on December 17, 2021.
Home Alone: The Holiday Heist received mainly negative reviews, [10] [11] although it fared better than the previous installment in the series. Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media awarded the film 2 out of 5 stars, writing that although the film was a "predictable slapstick comedy", it "still delivers the laughs". [12]
Debi Mazar Corcos is an American actress and television personality. She began her career with supporting roles in Goodfellas (1990), Little Man Tate (1991), Singles (1992) and Batman Forever (1995), followed by lead roles on the legal drama series Civil Wars and L.A. Law. She portrayed press agent Shauna Roberts on the HBO series Entourage. She also starred as Maggie Amato on TV Land's longest running original series, Younger, and alongside her husband Gabriele Corcos in the Cooking Channel series Extra Virgin.
Home Alone is a 1990 American Christmas comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes. The first film in the Home Alone franchise, the film stars Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, and Catherine O'Hara. Culkin plays Kevin McCallister, a boy who defends his suburban Chicago home from a home invasion by a pair of robbers after his family accidentally leaves him behind on their Christmas vacation to Paris.
Chris Joseph Columbus is an American filmmaker. Born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, Columbus studied film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he developed an interest in filmmaking. After writing screenplays for several teen comedies in the mid-1980s, including Gremlins, The Goonies, and Young Sherlock Holmes, he made his directorial debut with a teen adventure, Adventures in Babysitting (1987). Columbus gained recognition soon after with the highly successful Christmas comedy Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).
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 as he is separated from his family on their holiday vacation to Florida, this time in New York City where he has another encounter with the Wet Bandits after their escape from prison.
Home Alone 3 is a 1997 American family comedy film directed by Raja Gosnell in his directorial debut, written and co-produced by John Hughes, and starring Alex D. Linz and Haviland Morris. A standalone sequel to Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), it follows Alex Pruitt, an 8-year-old boy who defends his home from a dangerous band of international criminals working for a terrorist organization. It is the third film in the Home Alone franchise, the only one not set during Christmas, and the first not to feature actor Macaulay Culkin, director Chris Columbus, or composer John Williams; Gosnell had previously served as editor on the first two Home Alone films. It is also the final film in the Home Alone franchise to receive a theatrical release.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is a 1989 American Christmas comedy film and the third installment in National Lampoon magazine's Vacation film series. Christmas Vacation was directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik, written and co-produced by John Hughes, and starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, and Randy Quaid with supporting roles by Miriam Flynn, William Hickey, Mae Questel, Diane Ladd, John Randolph, E.G. Marshall, Doris Roberts, Juliette Lewis, and Johnny Galecki.
The Great Muppet Caper is a 1981 musical heist comedy film directed by Jim Henson and the second theatrical film featuring the Muppets. The film stars Muppet performers Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, and Steve Whitmire, as well as Charles Grodin and Diana Rigg with special cameo appearances by John Cleese, Robert Morley, Peter Ustinov, and Jack Warden. The film was produced by ITC Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company and distributed by Universal Pictures. In the plot, the Muppets are caught up in a jewel heist while investigating a robbery in London.
Dennis the Menace is a 1993 American family comedy film based on the Hank Ketcham comic strip of the same name, directed by Nick Castle, written and coproduced by John Hughes and distributed by Warner Bros. under its Family Entertainment label.
Jodelle Micah Ferland is a Canadian actress. She debuted as a child actress at the age of four in the television film Mermaid (2000) for which she won a Young Artist Award and received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination, making her the youngest nominee in Emmy history. Her career progressed with roles in the television film Carrie (2002), the horror films They (2002), Tideland (2005), Silent Hill (2006) and Case 39 (2009), and the comedy film Good Luck Chuck (2007). She also led the television series Kingdom Hospital (2004).
Holiday Affair is a 1949 American romantic comedy film directed and produced by Don Hartman and starring Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh and Wendell Corey. It was based on the story Christmas Gift by John D. Weaver, which was also the film's working title. The film allowed Mitchum to briefly depart from his typical roles in film noir, Western films and war films, and his casting was intended to help rehabilitate his image following a notorious marijuana bust.
Freeform's 25 Days of Christmas is an American annual seasonal event of Christmas programming broadcast during the month of December by the U.S. cable network Freeform. The event was first held in 1996, and has been an annual fixture of the channel through its various incarnations, including The Family Channel, Fox Family, ABC Family, and Freeform. The brand covers airings of classic holiday specials as well as new Christmas-themed television movies each year; generally few of the network's original series air during the time period, outside of Christmas-themed episodes. In 2006, the lineup has also included airings of general, family films that Freeform holds rights to, which included the Harry Potter films until January 2017, and other Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures films. In 2007, the block was extended to November with a Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas block. 25 Days of Christmas programming often attracts major surges in viewership for Freeform, with higher-profile film airings often attracting 3–4 million viewers or more.
Beethoven is a series of eight American films, created by John Hughes and Amy Holden Jones, in which the plot revolves around a family attempting to control the antics of their pet Saint Bernard. The first two films were theatrical releases and all subsequent releases have been direct to video. The original Beethoven was released in theaters in April 1992. Its opening grossed $7,587,565 and was the year's 26th largest grossing film in the U.S. at $57,114,049.
Home Alone is a series of American Christmas family comedy films originally created by John Hughes. Chris Columbus directed Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Raja Gosnell directed Home Alone 3 (1997), Rod Daniel directed Home Alone 4 (2002), Peter Hewitt directed Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012) and Dan Mazer directed Home Sweet Home Alone (2021). The films revolve around the adventures of surrounding children who find themselves alone during the holiday season and faced with the challenge of defending their family's house or themselves from invading burglars and criminals.
National Lampoon's Vacation film series is a comedy film series initially based on John Hughes' short story "Vacation '58" that was originally published by National Lampoon magazine. The series is distributed by Warner Bros. and consists of five main films, two of which are not sponsored by National Lampoon, and one spin-off. In recent years, the series has been the inspiration for various advertising campaigns featuring some of the original cast members. The series portrays the misadventures of the Griswold family, whose attempts to enjoy vacations and holidays are plagued with continual disasters and strangely embarrassing predicaments.
Six Bridges to Cross or 6 Bridges to Cross is a 1955 American film noir crime film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Tony Curtis, George Nader and Julie Adams. Six Bridges to Cross is based upon the famous 1950 Great Brink's Robbery of Boston, Massachusetts in which the thieves made off with roughly $2.5 million.
Christian Martyn is an actor best known for his role as Finn Baxter in Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012).
Peter DaCunha is a Portuguese-Canadian actor best known for his roles as Mason in Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012), Remi Vogel in Bruce McDonald's thriller film Hellions (2015) and Tyler in the acclaimed Atom Egoyan drama Remember (2015).
Home Alone 4 is a 2002 American made-for-television Christmas family comedy film directed by Rod Daniel, which first aired on ABC on November 3, 2002, as the first episode of the forty-seventh season of The Wonderful World of Disney, followed by a DVD release on September 2, 2003. The fourth installment in the Home Alone franchise, the film stars Mike Weinberg, French Stewart, Missi Pyle, Jason Beghe, Erick Avari, Barbara Babcock, Joanna Going, and Clare Carey. It follows Kevin McCallister spending his Christmas with his father and his new girlfriend as his old enemy Marv and his wife Vera come up with a plan to kidnap a visiting prince with help from an inside person that Kevin least suspects. This is the first in the Home Alone franchise to not receive a theatrical release.
The Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming was an Emmy award given to performers in television programming aimed towards children. During the 1970s and 1980s, guest performers in dramatic specials and regular performers on children's series competed in the same category. However, starting in 1989, separate categories for performances in children's series and performances in children's specials were created and used until after 2007 when all categories related to Children's Specials were dropped.
Ice Quake, also called Ice Quake: Nature Unleashed, is a 2010 television action film written by David Ray and directed by Paul Ziller and shown on the Syfy channel. It stars Brendan Fehr, Holly Dignard, Jodelle Ferland, Ryan Grantham and Rob LaBelle. Set primarily in Alaska, the film follows the members of a family caught amidst a natural disaster. As the permafrost thaws, subterranean rivers of liquid methane and disastrous earthquakes are unleashed, threatening to lead the Earth to a catastrophic end.