“Ma’am, I’m 10 years old, you think I could write this alone? I don’t think so.” The age demographics in Hollywood are about to skew a lot younger because a pre-teen has pitched an idea that is soon enough going to be written for the screen – and it’s a wonder it hasn’t been made yet. Here we have Home Alone meets The Godfather, in which we imagine one scene where Kevin McCallister jumps on his parents’ bed, only to find a decapitated horse head at the foot of it. The title? Little Wiseguy.
But the pitch doesn’t come from a desperate studio suit but rather a 10-year-old named Connor Esterson, who you may actually be familiar with, as he co-starred in last year’s Spy Kids: Armageddon. (Interestingly, that movie’s director, Robert Rodriguez, gave his son, Racer, story credit on 2005’s The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl when he was just eight years old.) And while Esterson has very likely seen Home Alone numerous times around the holiday season, he admits he has yet to see Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster epic.
As wild as a Home Alone / The Godfather mash-up sounds, the real story is the development. Esterson took it upon himself to work on a six-page treatment, which he then got in the hands of producer Joe Isgro, who passed it onto screenwriter Nick Vallelonga, who won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Green Book. Vallelonga is teaming with George Gallo – whose credits include Midnight Run, The Whole Ten Yards and, yes, 1986’s Wise Guys – to get the screenplay moved into production. While Esterson will likely at least receive a story credit, he has aspirations to continue on in the future as a director. Who knows, maybe he’ll helm the sequel: Little Wiseguy: Lost in New York, which would see the hero taking out intruders with a garrote instead of a paint can to the face.
Even though Esterson had his tiny foot in the door through Spy Kids and the Quantum Leap reboot, it’s still pretty amazing that he’s seeing his idea of Home Alone clashing with The Godfather go through the entire filmmaking process. Just think about what you were doing in fifth grade – but please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t share that with us!
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