The director of ‘Home Alone’ quit ‘Christmas Vacation’ after a rare meeting with Chevy Chase

Filmmaker Chris Columbus allegedly left the greatest Christmas movies of all time for the Chevy Chase.

Columbus, who went on to direct “Home Alone” in the 1990s, pointed out that Chase’s behavior before filming began forced him off the 1989 holiday season, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

“I signed on… and then I met Chevy Chase. Even when I looked at my situation at the time, when I really needed to make a movie, I realized that I couldn’t work with this guy,” the director told Vanity Fair.

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Columbus recalled his first meeting with Chase and the “strange” thing the actor said to him.

“It was just the two of us,” Columbus explained. “He had to know that I’m directing the film. I talked about how I see the film, how I want to make the film. He didn’t say anything. I spent about half an hour talking. He didn’t say a word and then you stop and say – and this doesn’t make sense to anyone in the world, but I’m telling you maybe I never I told this story.

“Forty minutes into the meeting, he says, ‘Wait a minute. Are you a director?’ I said, ‘Yeah… I’m directing a movie.’ And he said something very strange to me, which I still can’t make sense of. I said, ‘Uh, okay, let’s start talking about the movie again.’ After 30 seconds, he said, ‘I have to go.’

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Directors Chris Columbus, left, and John Hughes worked together on 1990’s “Home Alone.” (Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)

Chase later went to “Christmas Vacation” writer John Hughes and asked to meet the three, according to Columbus.

“Then we had a dinner where John Hughes was, and I wasn’t really there,” Columbus admitted. “It was Chevy and Hughes, and they talked about everything but ‘Christmas vacation.’ We spent two hours together, and I left dinner and thought, ‘There’s no way I can do a movie with this guy, first of all, he’s not treating me well. I’d rather not work again.’

A Chevy Chase stands at the head of a table in a scene from the 1989 film “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” (Warner Bros./Getty Images)

Columbus remarked that he didn’t know why Chase acted that way.

“I think those jokes were funny in the early 1970s,” he told the outlet. “It’s so amazing…Who says something like that to anybody? It makes no sense. So telling that story is probably absurd, but it actually happened. I thought, This is how we’re going to work together? He’s going to say he’s not listening.”

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Columbus was out on “Christmas Vacation,” but another chance with Hughes was at hand.

Macaulay Culkin as 10-year-old Kevin McCallister and Donald Trump as himself, the owner of the Plaza Hotel, in “Home Alone 2.” (Getty Images)

“I quit ‘Christmas Vacation.’ The next weekend, I got another script from John — and it’s ‘Home Alone,'” he recalls. “‘Home Alone,’ to me, was more human, a better script. And I thought, I can do something with this, and I don’t have to deal with Chevy Chase. That was it. John and I started working together, and we had the same idea.”

Fox News Digital reached out to a representative for Chase.

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“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik. (Warner Bros./Getty Images)

Chase and Beverly D’Angelo star as Clark and Ellen Griswold in the classic family film series that began with an innocent, cross-country trip to the Walley World theme park in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”

The 1983 film, directed by Harold Ramis and written by John Hughes, also starred Anthony Michael HallDana Barron, Randy Quaid and John Candy. Christie Brinkley starred in “The Girl in the Ferrari.”

The Griswolds head overseas for a second movie, 1985’s “National Lampoon’s European Vacation,” and return to Chicago for one last holiday ritual. “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

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Fox News Digital’s Tracy Wright contributed to this report.