The crew finally didn't stray too far from home this time around. Autumn was coming and any close by town with cold and leafy neighborhoods was good enough.
The final Home Alone film was a much grimmer one and had the season filmed during the gloomy fall season.
Filming in between the bright snow and coarse sand, the new environment set the mood for the finale.
McAllister's familiar house was now no more as they had to leave due to certain reasons.
One of the obvious reasons being Uncle Marv being an accomplice to a crime and Daddy McAllister choosing to stand with his brother.
Like any other marriage, the McAllister couple has bumps, and Kate choosing to move away for a while with the kids was all for a fresher start.
Kevin, along with his siblings, adapt to the new environment.
The start of the film consolidates Kevin's independence and strength. When they finally have a giant tree in their backyard, his resourcefulness, build habit, and engineering ability came into play.
An impressive treehouse was built and the process of building it was shown step by step.
When making the script, the Creeds took into account the design and asked carpentry and treehouse enthusiasts for help.
It didn't make use of nails to the trees because of environmental teaching undertones.
Alexander had to train his hammering skills for the building montage to work.
It was achieved through perfect seamwork that alternates between the pros building outside the recordings and Alexander swapping himself during the recordings.
Occasionally, Buzz and the other siblings would help.
The rope ladders, makeshift flags, wheels and axles, bells, and pictures perfectly inspire kids to want to own a treehouse.
Instead of being home alone in his own home or any other home for that matter, Kevin built one for himself.
It was a build inspired by the Home Alone wannabe film, Dennis the Menace.
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The film also shows Kevin's quirk as a school kid. The prequels featured a lot of the Christmas holidays that his time in school would be a surprise.
As a new kid and a transferee, Kevin would be subject to bullying and the highlight of the film would be how to deal with bullying.
Subverting wedgies and skilfully telling on teachers was an ongoing theme of the school-catered film.
Kevin even makes a friend with his bullied new neighbor and helps him overcome it. They play together in the treehouse but the gloom of the friend still wouldn't go away.
The nerds who would watch this film would get to emulate it. Sadly the bullies might follow suit as well. Alexander didn't care much for the effect on the bully and bullied dynamic but the pull the theme has on theaters.
Kids who were mesmerized by the first film would probably be angst teenagers when the final Home Alone movie would be shown, so it somehow had to cater to them and new audiences.
Goofy villains who use minimal guns aren't going to cut it, so the now 12-year-old Kevin had to combat an issue that is prevalent in reality.
Throughout the shooting, only a few mass children were used and most of them were recycled to save some money.
Like any other property owner in their growing list of film locations, the school that was used was kind enough to sanction the use of their classrooms while others are in class.
This wasn't a thing that used heavy-duty equipment so the goal was to not make it cost as much as the previous one.
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The production eventually reached the gloomy part of the film. Although Dennis the Menace was an inspiration, the true inspiration is the genius of the 'The Book of Henry'.
Unlike the original Book of Henry, where they killed of the titular character that people don't care much about.
The Creed Home Alone version was about Kevin suddenly getting hospitalized for an unknown reason.
The loss of Kevin would be much more subliminal and impactful than the death of sassy Henry.
The climax and the final battle would be set. 'The Book of Henry' made use of a voice recorder and preconceived strategy to take down an abusive stepfather with connections.
This Home Alone movie follows that concept but with a much more exciting and upbeat feel to it.
The advertisement from the voice recorder funded a minuscule amount of the film after all, so it had to have glorious moments. As for knowing about the device company's fate further down the years, Sullivan didn't care much for it.
Miss or Mother McAllister, along with the McAllister kids, would square off against an abusive and powerful neighbor who torments his son, the new neighbor, and friend of Kevin.
Both films tackle corruptness and the darkness of people but Alexander toned down the gloom a bit for the movie.
People in this time period just weren't too receptive to child violence in films. Even this boy version was cutting it for a PG movie.
The film ends with the lessons of overcoming bullies and helping the bullied. Kevin's fate would be open-ended and grips viewers into sadness until...
After the semi-credits roll and before the true credits, Kevin's fate would be revealed.
Sullivan has to blur it out and film it in secret to avoid spoilers from crew members. The Creed duo already imagined and assumed their film would be a phenomenal hit, so they had to take further precautions to protect their interest.
In any case, Kevin and old man Marley would be the people in the scenes, so self-filming should be relatively easy.
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After filming that scriptless finale in a hospital room, Sullivan put his thumbs up to the crew just outside the room and the cheers erupted.
The crew had already gotten used to finishing productions but finishing Home Alone 5 was the true end of it all, so their feelings were much more affected and magnified.
Celebration came into order and Sullivan had to reluctantly splurge. Everything ended and everyone parted ways.
When the films make themselves known to the world, everyone involved would be more or less affected by them.
Alexander's metaphorical butterfly had long set off its reshuffling of time.
