Whatever Happened To Honey, I Shrunk The Kids Star Rick Moranis?

Rick Moranis is a comedy legend. He appeared in many of the biggest comedies of the 1980s and '90s, including hits like the Mel Brooks film "Spaceballs" in which he played the villainous Dark Helmet. He starred in "Ghostbusters" as The Keymaster, and sang and danced around a carnivorous plant in "Little Shop of Horrors." Perhaps most memorably, Moranis played eccentric inventor Wayne Szalinski, the hapless dad who accidentally shrinks his kids in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids."

You'd think a career like that would keep right on rolling, but Moranis' IMDb page gets rather sparse after 1997. "I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break," he told USA Today (via Today). "And then I found that I really didn't miss it." He went into more detail with IGN, reflecting, "It was lucrative and I knew how to enjoy it, and how to enjoy my fellow cast members, how to enjoy my time away from home ... but creatively it was very unfulfilling."

In the decades since Moranis let his career fade away, the beloved star has occasionally popped back up in the headlines. He's dipped his toe back in the acting world, signed on to some projects that never came to fruition, and turned down many more. Here's what Rick Moranis has been up to since he last graced our movie screens.

Ann Belsky, Rick Moranis' wife, died in 1991. For a few years, he continued working sporadically. He played Barney Rubble in the live-action version of "The Flintstones," starred in a few more "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" movies, and appeared in the 1996 comedy "Big Bully." After 1997, though, Moranis took a step back from his acting career to focus on raising his children, choosing family over fame.

Moranis doesn't give out too much information about his kids; even their names aren't public knowledge. He did, however, give fans a glimpse at his home life in a 2006 interview with IGN. "I keep telling them they can do whatever they want to do," he said, noting that they were both reaching college age. "I really believe that. I want them to do whatever they want to do. Because I think doing what you want to do, as opposed to what you have to do, could be ... the difference between happiness and fulfillment ... and not."

Leaving Hollywood to become a family man was, of course, a big change. "I was working with really interesting people, wonderful people. I went from that to being at home with a couple of little kids, which is a very different lifestyle," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015, reflecting on his time out of the spotlight. "But it was important to me. I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever. My life is wonderful."

Reflecting on his career in an interview with IGN, Rick Moranis revealed that he actually preferred writing to acting. "I think right from the start performance was always second to writing, and always a means for executing the writing," he said. "As a performer I never felt the connection to the audience that I did as a writer."

Now that he was no longer acting, Moranis turned to other forms of writing as a creative outlet. Throughout the 2000s, he had several op-eds published in The New York Times, offering up pieces of creative writing with titles like "Heaven's Gates" in 2005 and "My Days Are Numbered" in 2006. In the latter, Moranis listed off numbered items in his daily life, including things like, "I have nine armchairs from which I can be critical. I have a laundry list of things that need cleaning. I have lost more than one thousand golf balls." In the former, Moranis related an eerie dream about his childhood home.

Speaking with IGN, Moranis explained that most of his writing was just for him. "I throw out a lot more than I keep," he said. "I'm pretty critical of my own work, so it has to get to a point where I'm really happy with it before I'll reveal it even to my closest friends. So I've got all kinds of things that I've played with ... to amuse myself and to experiment with new ideas and new forms."

Though Rick Moranis stepped back from on-camera acting, he didn't stop acting entirely ... at least, not at first. In 2003, he voiced a moose named Rutt in Disney's "Brother Bear." He told IGN that he didn't mind the process of voice acting, reasoning that it required far less of a time commitment. "It had more to do with not wanting to get involved in an extended production shoot," he said. "I was also willing to do the voice stuff, because that was very manageable. It had more to do with not wanting to commit to a long shoot than anything else."

Moranis told Sound & Vision that his work in "Brother Bear" was actually reminiscent of an old SCTV sketch. Back in his days on the Canadian comedy show that also spawned the careers of stars like "Schitt's Creek" legends Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, Moranis acted in a recurring sketch called "Great White North." Alongside Dave Thomas as his brother, Moranis played Bob McKenzie, an ultra-Canadian stereotype. "[In 'Brother Bear,'] Dave and I played these moose characters who were very similar to the McKenzies — although we don't call them that — and we did a total of about a half-dozen scenes in the movie. And it came out really well," he said. "We just got on the [mic] and improvised, and we had a great time." They even recorded a DVD commentary for the film, improvising in character while they watched the movie.

We think of Rick Moranis as an actor and comedian, but he's a musician, too. Even after his retirement from acting, Moranis has continued to release music. In 2005, for example — years after his last on-screen appearance — Moranis released an album called "The Agoraphobic Cowboy." 

Speaking about the album with IGN, Moranis explained that he prefers to work in short-form rather than long-form, and that he saw these songs as sketches rather than viewing the album as a longer project. "My daughter was listening to all this bluegrass and all this country-sounding music was filling the house, a house which normally was filled with classical music and jazz, and it was really hooking into my psyche," he said. "So when I would get a comical idea, instead of kind of putting it on a road to a joke or two or a potential little essay or something, it fell into what was already vamping in my head, which was the tone and texture and feel of that kind of music."

"The Agoraphobic Cowboy" was nominated for Best Comedy Album at the 2006 Grammy Awards, but Moranis unfortunately didn't win. That's okay with him, though; he was enjoying the process of engaging with the public again for the first time in a while. "I've been consumed by that and have found it really interesting and enjoyable," he said. "Because it's a different world out there from the last time I did this kind of thing."

At the height of his career, Rick Moranis was involved in numerous high-profile projects that have since become beloved classics. In "Ghostbusters," for example — directed by the late Ivan Reitman — he played the hapless Louis Tully, an accountant who is utterly besotted with Dana (Sigourney Weaver). When Dana becomes possessed by Zuul, Louis becomes her right-hand man, wrapped up in the climax of the supernatural comedy.

"Ghostbusters" has been rebooted several times in the past decade, but while stars like Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson all came back for more, Moranis wasn't interested in ending his retirement for the franchise. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter around the time director Paul Feig brought the series back with a team of all-women Ghostbusters, Moranis mused, "It just makes no sense to me. Why would I do just one day of shooting on something I did 30 years ago?"

In other words, it was going to take a lot more than just a cameo to get him back in front of a camera. "I'm very happy with the many things I've said no to," he concluded. "Yes, I am picky, and I'll continue to be picky. Picky has worked for me."

In early 2020, Rick Moranis fans got the news that they had been waiting decades for. The actor was finally set to make his grand return to live-action filmmaking, this time in a reboot of the "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" franchise. Original director Joe Johnston was set to return, and Josh Gad was meant to play Wayne Szalinski's son in the new installment, which was to have been called, simply, "Shrunk."

Fans, of course, were overjoyed by the news. "I am ready for the Moranissance," one fan wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Another wasn't particularly excited for the project, but was looking forward to more Moranis anyway. "I don't care about the reboot. I am stoked he is coming out of retirement!" they tweeted.

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic squashed any hope of the reboot ever coming to fruition. In 2023, Gad revealed on X that the film was no longer in active development. He wrote, "Truth is, we were inches from starting and then COVID hit, inches from starting again & then my schedule exploded with conflicts, inches from starting again & budget got the best of us." Gad encouraged people to reach out to Disney if they were still interested in the movie, but there has been no further news on its production, meaning Moranis still has yet to return to film.

Rick Moranis signing on to a reboot of "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" wasn't the only time he made headlines in 2020. Unfortunately, the actor's other brush with the news was for a far less exciting reason. That October, Moranis was walking around New York City when he was attacked at random by a man who sucker-punched him in the head. His representative said in a statement (via ABC7), "Rick Moranis was assaulted on the Upper West Side yesterday. He is fine but grateful for everyone's thoughts and well wishes."

The news sent shockwaves through Hollywood, angering none other than Captain America himself, actor Chris Evans. "My blood is boiling. Find this man. You don't touch Rick Moranis," the "Avengers" star wrote on X, formerly Twitter (via People).  Sure enough, the police did just that, and the attacker was arrested the following month. He ultimately pled guilty to that assault and several others, and he was eventually sentenced to two years in prison.

Rick Moranis capped off his relatively eventful 2020 by finally doing the thing he'd been avoiding for decades: getting back in front of the camera for the first time in a very long time. We have "Deadpool" star Ryan Reynolds to thank, because Moranis' on-camera appearance wasn't a character after all; instead, Reynolds convinced Moranis to play himself in a commercial for Mint Mobile.

The ad is about Mint Mobile's unlimited plan, which Reynolds says in the commercial was a long time coming ... just like the "Little Shop of Horror" star's return. Moranis wanders into frame looking confused, asking the "Van Wilder" actor, "So, why am I here?"

Reynolds was very excited to bring one of his favorite actors out of retirement, revealing on X that he'd had an emotional reaction to the news that Moranis had agreed to appear in the commercial. He wrote, "Honestly, when he said yes, I wept."