It’s not surprising that Disney is planning a new Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movie. What is surprising is that the studio may be able to get original star Rick Moranis to return for the film.
Moranis famously stepped back from Hollywood at the peak of his career in the 1990s in order to raise his children, as his wife, Ann Belsky, had passed away in 1991. He has yet to return to moviemaking, and 1997’s Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves remains the last live-action film role of Moranis’ career. But a new report from The DisInsider claims that Disney is in early talks with Moranis about reprising his role as scientist Wayne Szalinski in an upcoming Honey, I Shrunk the Kids sequel. The idea that Moranis may end his two-decade-plus retirement is shocking in itself, but what’s even more shocking is the alleged plot of the film.
According to the report, the movie revolves around Szalinski grieving the loss of his wife, which given Moranis’ real-life history would be an extraordinary example of art imitating life. The film, which would take place 30 years after the original, would show how the character has become a hermit after his attempts to shrink his late wife’s cancer failed. He spends all his time in his attic working on his experiments, which has left his children alienated. The film would focus on the family coming back together, with Josh Gad playing Szalinski’s now-adult son Nick, and it sounds like a very dark new direction for this family-friendly franchise.
While we’re certainly excited over the prospect of Moranis ending his self-imposed retirement, we can’t help but take this news with an enormous helping of salt. Would he really choose a project that seems so tragically personal as his big comeback? Maybe, but it seems to us like it’d be a pretty tall order. If and when Moranis does come aboard, however, the movie is expected to begin filming this spring.
