It wasn`t clear what Elle Sergenian was pointing to, but you could tell she was excited.
”I see da!” the 1-year-old squealed, pointing to the scene across the street. ”I see da! I see da!”
Maybe it was the Christmas decorations in the store windows along LaSalle Street, between Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard, that caught her attention. Or the false storefront of Duncan`s Toy Store, with the giant bear over the doorway that seemed to promise holiday wonders.
Maybe it was the sight of actor Daniel Stern as he scooped food off a plate and into his mouth, or Joe Pesci, who was slumped in a chair, his back to Elle and the dozens who were looking on.
There were lots of things to catch the eyes of passersby who stopped to watch the filming for the sequel to ”Home Alone” in the shadow of the Chicago Board of Trade Tuesday.
Some 60 crew people and 100 extras were on hand along the cordoned-off street to shoot several scenes for the movie, ”Home Alone II: Lost in New York,” which, as the title suggests, is set in New York. But all the LaSalle Street scenes were filmed outside the fictional Duncan`s Toy Store, which was really the Brooks Brothers building with a good makeover.
Filming is slated to continue there through Friday and will be ongoing throughout the area for the next 10 weeks. ”Home Alone” is the third-highest grossing movie of all time, having drawn more than $270 million at the box office.
Actor Tony Ramos showed up at 6 a.m. to appear as an extra in a street scene. He stood at the end of a long line of extras, clutching his prop Christmas package and memorizing lines from ”Who`s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” for a scene in an acting class.
”This is, like, the worst work you can get,” he said, laughing. ”The job is to hang around. I`ve done five or six films like this, and I`ve never had enough ambition to see any of them. I don`t know why.”
Elle had come from her family`s nearby apartment with her 3-year-old sister Stephanie and mom, Carla.
”We`ve probably watched `Home Alone` a hundred times,” Carla Sergenian said. ”We planned on coming. We talked about it at breakfast. I can`t wait to see the sequel.”
Unfortunately, 8-year-old Dustin Sergenian, who is about the same age as Macaulay Culkin`s character, Kevin, couldn`t come along, because he had school.
”We didn`t tell him it about it, because he would just die,” Carla said. ”It would have been fun to have him here.”
Hmmm . . . a family leaves for a day of fun and doesn`t bring their 8-year-old son along. Might make a great movie.
