Macaulay Culkin Booed by Audience After Sharing His Hot Take on Whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas Classic

NEED TO KNOW

• Macaulay Culkin is weighing in on the annual debate over whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie

• Speaking at an event celebrating the 35th anniversary of Home Alone, the actor was asked about his favorite holiday films

• Not among them? Die Hard, which he said is simply not a Christmas movie

Macaulay Culkin is getting some good-natured criticism after weighing in on the debate over whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

Speaking at A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin, an event celebrating the 35th anniversary of Home Alone, on Saturday, Nov. 22, at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center in Long Beach, Calif, the 45-year-old actor was asked about his favorite holiday films.

“A big one in our household growing up was A Christmas Story, certainly was always on,” Culkin said. “A lost classic or one that people kind of forget: Scrooged…. Scrooged is awesome though. Yeah, we watch it all the time. Those were ones that really stick out.”

Culkin continued: “There’s some ones that come later. Elf is a really good one, but I wasn’t raised on Elf so it doesn’t have that nostalgia factor. And also, okay guys for real: Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie.”

Culkin’s last line elicited boos from the audience, to which he responded: “I know. Some of you guys want to fight me, I’ll meet you at the loading dock, but it’s just a movie that’s set at Christmas. If you set it at St. Patrick’s Day, the exact same movie. But you set Home Alone at St. Patrick’s Day…”

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Other actors from iconic holiday films have also weighed in one the debate.

Speaking to PEOPLE in 2024, A Christmas Story star Peter Billingsley said Die Hard cinematographer, Jan de Bont, offered one reason: “I think what sold [de Bont] is I said, ‘That relationship between John McClane and his estranged wife, they’re fractured, but by the end, they learn to forgive each other. There’s hope, there’s joy, and they’re going to go and have a great Christmas morning with their kids.”

“Not to mention there’s Christmas songs, and they have the snow falling. In my opinion it is a Christmas movie,” Billingsley added.

Others involved in the making of Die Hard are split.

Director John McTiernan  told the American Film Institute in 2020: “We hadn’t intended it to be a Christmas movie, but the joy that came from it is what turned it into a Christmas movie.”

But in Comedy Central’s 2018 Roast of Bruce Willis, the star of the film joked, “I did this roast for one reason and for one reason only, to settle something once and for all. Now, please listen very carefully: Die Hard is not a Christmas movie! It’s a goddamn Bruce Willis movie.”

Read the original article on People