Disney has been working on a reboot for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and has officially pushed nostalgia levels to critical mass.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, comedy legend Rick Moranis will return to the franchise he helped propel to fame.
Moranis will return as Dr. Wayne Szalinski, the eccentric scientist who just so happens to make his house his lab. Joe Johnston, director of the original, will direct the reboot, which has Josh Gad attached to star as Szalinski’s grown son. David Hoberman is producing the reboot from a script by Todd Rosenberg. No other casting attachments or plot information has been revealed.
Moranis is well-known for a number of ’80s and ’90s comedy classics, including Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, and Disney’s Little Giants. Most millennial viewers, however, know him for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
Disney’s 1989 original focused on Szalinski’s kids who stumble upon a very poorly secured shrink ray in their family home and accidentally shrink themselves down to the size of bugs. The movie struck a delightful balance between sci-fi and family fun, taking the convention of the family comedy, adding some special effects, and teaching kids everywhere that bananas are high in potassium.
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids spawned a 1992 sequel, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, and a 1997 straight-to-DVD continuation, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, which was his last live-action film. Moranis starred in all three, as the good doctor just can’t seem to follow proper safety procedures on his experiments, accidentally inflating his newborn baby to the size of a house and then shrinking himself and his wife.
Now that Moranis is confirmed, it seems entirely likely that the upcoming reboot will involve some sort of innocent scientific negligence that results in somebody changing sizes. (In a truly strange world, the reboot would even overlap with another size-fluctuating Disney character, Ant-Man.)
Disney continues to lean into the nostalgia angle, making many classic movies and shows available on streaming service Disney+ while producing live-action remakes of animated hits and reboots of millennial fan-favorite franchises like The Mighty Ducks and Lizzie Maguire. Getting Moranis, who avoided overtures to return to the Ghostbusters franchise, seems to be confirmation that nostalgia is working.
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