‘Home Alone’ actor reveals fight for five times salary for sequel

Daniel Stern almost lost his chance to play burglar Marv in “Home Alone” and its sequels by asking for more money.

In his new memoir “Home and Alone,” released Tuesday, the actor writes that he would be paid $300,000 for six weeks of work on the original 1990 film.

But then: “I got a call that they had changed the shooting schedule and now they would need me for eight weeks instead of six,” he writes. “They asked me to add 33% more shooting time, so I asked if they were going to increase my salary by the same amount, and they said no.”

The producers hired another actor to begin rehearsing with Joe Pesci in Chicago, but fortunately for Stern, it didn’t work out.

A few days later, Stern received a call that they wanted him back and would “honor the original contract and stay on schedule in six weeks.”

He was relieved to have learned a valuable lesson from a near-disaster situation.

“At some point there’s a change of, ‘OK, I’m committed to this project,’” he told The Post. “If it takes 14 weeks, I will miss graduation because I committed to it. And that was the lesson.

“Luckily, I dodged the bullet of my stupidity and ended up in the movie.”

“Home Alone” grossed nearly $500 million worldwide — after costing just $18 million to produce — prompting Twentieth Century Fox to plan a sequel almost immediately.

According to the book, the film’s minor star, Macaulay Culkin, signed a deal for the sequel for $5 million plus 5% of box office gross.

“So I said, ‘You know, this is going to be amazing,’” Stern told The Post.

It even took the producers six months to submit an offer of “$600,000, which was double my original salary but not quite what I was hoping for,” he writes. “I asked if it was the same as Joe [Pesci] was getting it and they said it wasn’t.”

The studio eventually raised the offer to $800,000, but Stern discovered that Pesci “was getting between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 plus a percentage of gross profits.”

He was determined to get at least half of what Pesci was earning. So when Stern’s agent advised him to accept the offer, the actor fired him.

He now admits it was a “proud thing to do,” but adds that if it was the best his agent could do, “it means he wasn’t very good at his job.”

Stern took over his own negotiations by playing chicken. He practically doubled his ask, shooting for $1.5 million and 2% in gross profits.

The ruse didn’t materialize until then-Fox boss Joe Roth personally called and asked Stern to start filming without a contract.

Ultimately, the gambit worked: Stern received the desired salary and 1% of the gross.

“I knew they wouldn’t make the movie without me, but I also felt insecure because I almost screwed it up the first time,” he writes. “I didn’t want to be too greedy since I loved the movie and the role so much.”