Rick Moranis Is Officially Unretired
It’s been a long time since 1997’s Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, the last movie appearance of ‘80s comedy star Rick Moranis. (That sequel was straight-to-video — for big-screen movies, you have to go back to 1996’s Big Bully with Jim Belushi.) But Moranis’ extended hiatus from film comedy officially ended today with the start of filming for Josh Gad’s Spaceballs 2.
Moranis is back as Dark Helmet, the Darth Vader spoof from Mel Brooks’ 1987 Star Wars parody, Spaceballs. Other cast members from the original are returning as well, including Bill Pullman as Lone Starr, Mel Brooks as Yogurt, Daphne Zuniga as Princess Vespa and George Wyner as Colonel Sandurz. A press release describes the new film as a “non-prequel non-reboot sequel part two but with reboot elements franchise expansion film.”
The reason for the long absence? Moranis’ wife, costume designer Ann Belsky, died from cancer in 1991. The actor attempted to balance a movie career with his parenting responsibilities for a few years, but ultimately decided that his family needed to be his focus. “I pulled out of making movies in about ’96 or ’97. I’m a single parent, and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies,” he told USA Today in 2005. “So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn’t miss it.”
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Moranis told USA Today that he’d turned down several movie roles since leaving the business. That didn’t stop him from taking on creative side projects, such as 2005’s tongue-in-cheek country album, The Agoraphobic Cowboy.
A decade later, he still hadn’t returned to acting, although he did occasional voiceover work for animation. “I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015. “My life is wonderful.”
He could have appeared in the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, but he told Empire that he no longer wanted to reprise his old characters. He’d appeared in Ghostbusters 2 (“a disappointment”) and he’d had enough. “I’m not interested in doing anything I’ve already done,” he said.
Except Spaceballs 2, apparently. Why the change of heart? Maybe he has an affinity for the franchise — he pitched his own idea for a Spaceballs sequel to Brooks years ago, but the two couldn’t strike a deal.
Josh Gad thinks he knows the reason: “I would say it’s because Rick would have felt like this was a project worthy of his return.”
We’ll find out in 2027 if Spaceballs 2 lives up to that lofty standard.
