Home Alone actor Daniel Stern has opened up about a salary negotiation that almost lost him his role in the massively successful movie and sequel.
Stern was due to star as Marv the burglar in the film as part of the bumbling criminal duo alongside Joe Pesci.
The actor was due to be paid $300,000 (USD) for six weeks of work on the original movie, according to his new memoir. Home and Alonefor Page SixBut Stern decided to push his luck after being called for an extra two weeks of work.
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“I got a call saying they had redone the shooting schedule and they would now need me for eight weeks instead of six,” he wrote.
“They were asking me to add on 33 per cent more shooting time, so I asked if they were going to raise my salary the same amount, and they said they would not.”
Eventually, after a failed attempt with a new actor, producers asked Stern to return to the project on the initial six week contract.
After the near miss on what would go on to become a worldwide hit grossing nearly $500 million (USD), Stern tells Page Six that luck was on his side.
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“Luckily I dodged the bullet of my stupidity and ended up in the movie.”
But the negotiation attempts didn’t stop there.
After the original movie’s massive success, plans to make a sequel were underway quickly.
Stern writes in the book that while the film’s young lead Macaulay Culkin had a deal for $5 million USD and 5 per cent of gross box office profits and his costar Pesci was “getting somewhere between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 plus gross percentage of the profits,” he had been offered $600,000.
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While it was double his salary from the first film, Stern was not overly excited about the offer, he writes saying it was “not quite the pot of gold he was hoping for.”
Executives raised his offer to $800,000 but after learning of his co-stars salary Stern pushed further, firing his agent who advised him to take the second offer, and commencing his own negotiations.
The second time round was a success for Stern with executives agreeing on his asking salary of $1.5 million as well as one percent of the box office gross profits.
“I knew they couldn’t do the movie without me, but I was also insecure, since I almost blew it the first time,” he writes, per Page Six.
“I didn’t want to be too greedy when I loved the movie and the part so much.”
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