Honestly, I miss Rick Moranis. The Ghostbusters, Spaceballs and Little Shop of Horrors star has effectively retired from Hollywood, having announced in 1997 that he was taking a hiatus from the movie industry to raise his children. That hiatus never ended though and Moranis has said that “he doesn’t really miss” acting. So, it was something of a surprise when The DisInsider told us that Moranis would be returning as oddball scientist Wayne Szalinski for a reboot of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
As fans will know, the 1989 movie was a surprise hit for the Mouse House, grossing $222 million and becoming the highest-grossing live-action Disney film (a record it held for five years). It went on to spawn two sequels as well, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid and Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, both of which failed to capture the magic of the original. Now, with Disney flush with success after a slew of live-action remakes (and many more to come on Disney Plus), it makes sense that they’d return to the franchise.
But sadly, it seems Moranis won’t be along for the ride. CinemaBlend is reporting that they got in touch with Disney about the casting and the studio shot down The DisInsider’s initial report, calling it false. Ordinarily, big studios are non-committal about casting news, as even if they don’t have plans to cast someone, they usually prefer not to close the door altogether. But this time they’ve flat out said that they have no knowledge of Moranis’ potential return.
Just because Moranis isn’t returning though doesn’t mean a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids reboot isn’t happening. Word is that it’s provisionally titled Shrunk and will star Josh Gad as the grown-up Nick, who’ll go on to shrink his own kids. C’mon dude, given your family history with shrink-rays, is it really such a good idea to mess with one?
Anyway, while the Ant-Man movies have provided a decent array of shrinking-related action over the last few years, it’d be neat to see normal human characters dealing with a shrunken world again. I just hope they don’t pull on my heartstrings too much. I was mildly traumatized by the death of ‘Antie’ as a kid and don’t want to repeat the experience.