Screen Rant's Pitch Meeting series sets its sights on Home Sweet Home Alone and the many problems of the latest installment of the holiday franchise. The sixth film in the series centers on a troublesome young kid who is left home alone by his family while they go on a vacation to Tokyo and faces off against a married couple in financial trouble who try to steal back a a valuable heirloom from the kid. Jojo Rabbit breakout Archie Yates leads the cast of Home Sweet Home Alone alongside Rob Delaney, Ellie Kemper, Ally Maki, Kenan Thompson, Chris Parnell, Aisling Bea, Pete Holmes, Timothy Simons, Mikey Day and Devin Ratray reprising his role as Buzz McCallister from the original Home Alone movies.
Development on Home Sweet Home Alone was first announced in mid-2019 when Disney CEO Bob Iger announced a new installment in the Home Alone franchise was in the works following the House of Mouse's acquisition of Fox. Sacha Baron Cohen production and writing partner Dan Mazer would enter talks to helm the film a few months later with a script from Saturday Night Live's Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell. Production on Home Sweet Home Alone would get underway in early 2020, though would see a delay due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, wrapping earlier this year in time for an early holiday 2021 Disney+ debut.
Less than a week after its premiere on Disney+, Screen Rant's own Pitch Meeting series has returned to focus on Home Sweet Home Alone. The new episode focuses on the film's problematic decision to make the villain sympathetic, the unlikable child protagonist and lack of logic in its booby traps. Check out the hilarious new Pitch Meeting below:
Since the film was announced to be in development, audiences have been largely against Home Sweet Home Alone, citing the film as unnecessary and giving the first trailer over seventy-nine thousand dislikes on YouTube upon its arrival in early October. The latest Pitch Meeting episode properly tackles many of fan and critics issues with the film, namely its decision to make the robbers sympathetic for the story while making the child protagonist unlikable. While this shift in the Home Alone formula could have made for an interesting evolution to the franchise, it ultimately worked against the film's entertainment or ability to connect with audiences.
The dislike for Home Sweet Home Alone was not kept solely to the marketing leading up to the film's release as critics have been equally expressive about their distaste for the film as audiences. The Home Alone reboot sits at an 18 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 14 percent approval rating from audiences, with the critical consensus hilariously stating "Nobody's Home." Those morbidly curious to give Home Sweet Home Alone a watch can now head to Disney+.