Director Chris Columbus Left ‘Christmas Vacation’ After Chevrolet Chase Reunions: ‘I Don’t Need This’

From Alone at home has Harry Potter And Gremlins has The Goonies, Chris Columbus has a long list of major film credits as director, screenwriter or producer. Christmas vacation could also have been part of his biography.

Columbus, 66, said Vanity Fair in an interview published Monday, December 23, that he had begun work on the 1989 film National Lampoon when, after meeting Chevy Chasehe decided he couldn’t go through with it.

“I was hired…and then I met Chevy Chase. Even given my situation at the time, where I desperately needed to make a movie, I realized I couldn’t work with this guy,” Columbus said of the film’s star.

Chase, 81, plays Clark Griswold, patriarch of the Griswold family, determined to have a perfect Christmas with his wife and two children. Naturally, a series of comedic errors throughout the film threaten to derail the family’s vacation.

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Columbus described his awkward first meeting with Chase, which he called “the most surreal and bizarre thing.”

“I talked about how I saw the film, how I wanted to make the film. He didn’t say anything,” Columbus said. “I spent about half an hour talking. He didn’t say a word. And then he stops and he says – and this makes no sense to any human being on the planet, but I’m telling you. I probably never told this story. Forty minutes into the meeting, he said, “Wait a second. Are you the director? And I said, ‘Yeah…I’m directing the movie.’ … He said, ‘Oh, I thought you were a drummer.’

Fans noted that Chase could have been referring to the jazz musician of the same name, who died in 2002.

The two met again, this time with John Hughesthe author of the film, is also present. The trio sat down to dinner and, according to Columbus, Hughes and Chase talked for two hours about everything except the movie.

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“I left the dinner and I was like, ‘I can’t make a movie with this guy.’ First of all, he’s not engaged. He treats me like shit. I don’t need this. I prefer not to work anymore. I prefer to write,” Columbus recalls.

Columbus informed Hughes of his decision and said the writer was understanding. It worked, too, because the following weekend Hughes sent him another script.

“I received another script from John – and it’s Alone at home” Columbus said. “Alone at homefor me it was even more personal, a better scenario. And I thought, “I can really do something with this, and I don’t have to worry about Chevy Chase.” »

Alone at home was released the following year and, although it received mixed reviews at the time, it became a Christmas classic, grossing $476.7 million at the box office and spawning a sequel two years later late.