Home Alone 2 director wants that cameo cut out

“It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone,” says Chris Columbus of a Home Alone 2 cameo. More here.

It’s the curse of every artist to look at their work and first see the flaws, but for Chris Columbus, the flaw with 1992’s Home Alone 2 is a painful one. Even now, over 30 years later, he feels compelled to speak out about his desire to change the film if he could. He’s talking of course about that infamous cameo from the incumbent American president, wearer of strangely orange makeup and custodian of one of the world’s most ambitious combovers: Donald Trump.

Given Trump’s actions since once more gaining residence of the Oval Office, we’d imagine there’s quite a few voters who are suffering from ‘buyer’s remorse’ and Chris Columbus knows exactly how they feel. While chatting with the San Francisco Chronicle recently, the veteran director once again outlined why Trump popped up in Home Alone 2 and how much the cameo rankles him to this day.

“It’s become this thing that I wish it was not there,” sais Columbus. “What’s going through this guy’s mind?. He said I was lying. I’m not lying. He said I begged him to be in the movie, but there’s no world I would ever beg a non-actor to be in a movie. But we were desperate to get the Plaza Hotel. But it’s there. It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone.”

Columbus reveals that he still almost cut the scene from the film anyway, but in a sign of Trump’s future popularity, it was a Chicago test screening that persuaded him to keep the scene in the final cut of the movie. “We screened the film in Chicago, and when that moment came onscreen the audience went crazy… they cheered and they cheered and they thought it was hilarious. I think I know a lot about comedy, but I don’t, obviously, because I never thought that was going to be considered hilarious.”

However, over three decades later it’s clear that Columbus still doesn’t see the funny side of it. To make matters worse, Trump has used his sizeable social media platform in the past to (surprise, surprise) denounce Columbus’ story as fake news, instead claiming that the filmmaker “begged” him to make an appearance in the movie.

Oh well, Columbus can at least take heart from the fact that he just put Orange Make-up Man on film for seven seconds. It was The Simpsons that predicted that his presidency would one day leave the country in financial ruin, a throwaway joke that seems to come a littler closer to fruition with each passing day.

Compared to that almighty prophetic jinx, we’d argue that Columbus should stop worrying and get on producing his Werwulf film with director Robert Eggers.