Chris Columbus reveals ‘bizarre’ story behind why he couldn’t work with Chevy Chase on ‘Christmas Vacation’

“Home Alone” director Chris Columbus nearly helmed another iconic Christmas movie, but he said that a “surreal” pair of meetings with star Chevy Chase made him quit the film.

Columbus, 66, shared in an interview with Vanity Fair that he had originally signed on to direct “Christmas Vacation,” but he and Chase ended up getting along about as well as Clark Griswold and Uncle Lewis.

“I was signed on … and then I met Chevy Chase,” Columbus said. “Even given my situation at the time, where I desperately needed to make a film, I realized I couldn’t work with the guy.

“Tale as old as time!” he continued. “I was one of the many who couldn’t work with him. And I called John and I said, ‘This is really hard for me, but I can’t do this movie with Chevy Chase.’”

TODAY.com reached out to Chase for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Columbus said he and legendary producer John Hughes had the same agent, which resulted in Columbus being sent the script for “Christmas Vacation.”

The director had begun shooting exterior shots in Chicago for the 1989 movie when he had meetings with Chase that derailed his participation.

“My first meeting with him, I sat down with him,” Columbus said. “It was just the two of us. He had to know I was directing the movie. I talked about how I saw the movie, how I wanted to make the movie. He didn’t say anything. I went through about a half hour of talking. He didn’t say a word. And then he stops and he says—and this makes no sense to any human being on the planet, but I’m telling you. I probably have never told this story.

“Forty minutes into the meeting, he says, ‘Wait a second. You’re the director?’ And I said, ‘Yeah…I’m directing the film.’ And he said to me the most surreal, bizarre thing. I still haven’t been able to make any sense out of it. He said, ‘Oh, I thought you were a drummer.’ I said, ‘Uhh, okay. Let’s start talking about the film again.’ After about 30 seconds, he said, ‘I got to go.'”

Columbus said Chase met with Hughes, and they set up a second meeting at dinner with Hughes in attendance.

“I was basically nonexistent,” Columbus said. “It was Chevy and Hughes, and they talked about everything except ‘Christmas Vacation.’ We spent two hours together, and I left the dinner and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can make a movie with this guy. First of all, he’s not engaged. He’s treating me like s—. I don’t need this. I’d rather not work again. I’d rather write.'”

The interaction has left Columbus puzzled nearly 40 years later.

“I guess that sense of humor was funny in the early ’70s,” he said. “It’s so surreal … Who says anything like that to anybody? It makes no sense. So to tell that story almost makes no sense, but it actually happened. I thought, ‘This was how we’re going to work together? I’m going to be on set and he’s not listening.’

“I called John and said, ‘I can’t do this,'” he continued. “‘John, I need this job desperately, but I know I will not make a good movie with this guy and I will let you down.’ And he said, ‘I understand. Completely understand.'”

Jeremiah S. Chechik ended up directing “Christmas Vacation,” which was the third edition of the “National Lampoon’s Vacation” series, all of them starring Chase.

However, leaving “Christmas Vacation” led Columbus right to another holiday classic.

“The next weekend, I got another script from John—and it’s ‘Home Alone,'” he said. “‘Home Alone,’ for me, was even more personal, a better script. And I thought, I can really do something with this, and I don’t have to deal with Chevy Chase. That was it.”

Columbus went on to direct “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and a pair of “Harry Potter” blockbuster movies. He is a producer on the upcoming vampire film “Nosferatu,” a remake of the 1922 silent classic of the same name.