Dennis the Menace (1993)

Home Alone's success sent studios hunting for the next mischievous kid, and Hank Ketcham's comic strip was the obvious one. 20th Century Fox showed interest, but the producers passed because of possible conflicts with a Dennis the Menace stage musical then in development; Disney and Steven Spielberg's Amblin also made offers. The film landed at Warner Bros. through Ernest Chambers, Ketcham's longtime friend and the film's executive producer, and the studio optioned the strip for $100,000 against $1.6 million, plus $250,000 to Ketcham if it went into production. Warner's Terry Semel wanted Tim Burton to direct; Chambers said no and hired John Hughes to write and produce on the strength of the Home Alone films. Hughes brought in Patrick Read Johnson to direct, they parted over "creative differences," and Nick Castle took over.

Walter Matthau was announced as Mr. Wilson in May 1992, and Mason Gamble won Dennis from a reported 20,000 children who auditioned. Matthau had planned to keep his distance from the boy, reasoning that Mr. Wilson does not like children, and abandoned the idea on the first day when Gamble recognized him as Mr. Wilson and ran into his arms. The plot is a string of small catastrophes: an aspirin fired into the mouth of a Wilson who is only pretending to sleep, Chiclets swapped for his front dentures before a newspaper photo, and the rare orchid he has grown for nearly forty years, which blooms for one night while everyone is distracted by Dennis's burglary alarm and then dies. Christopher Lloyd's Switchblade Sam, who steals Wilson's coin collection and takes Dennis hostage, was by Matthau's account so terrifying that one child actor could not work for two days.

Released on June 25, 1993 under Warner's Family Entertainment label, the film took $51 million domestically and $66 million overseas against a $35 million budget. Reviews were mixed to negative. Roger Ebert gave it two and a half stars and wrote, "There's a lot to like in Dennis the Menace. But Switchblade Sam prevents me from recommending it." Rotten Tomatoes' consensus still says Matthau "does a nice job as Mr. Wilson," but that the film "follows the Home Alone formula far too closely." Gamble was nominated for a Razzie as Worst New Star and won a Youth in Film award for the same performance.

Hughes wanted a sequel only if Matthau returned, and Matthau said he had already signed for one before the first film opened; the project drifted for years until Don Rickles was announced as Mr. Wilson in September 1997, and Dennis the Menace Strikes Again went straight to video in 1998.