Rick Moranis Explains Why He Finally Said Yes to a Hollywood Return With Spaceballs 2: “I Wasn’t Really Retired. I Was Just Negotiating.”

San Diego Comic-Con is renowned for delivering some memorable moments thanks to its many panels, and this year is no exception. Among the usual list of superhero movie announcements and teasers, one moment that really overshadowed them all was the appearance of Rick Moranis in Hall H for the first time in decades.

During the SDCC panel for Spaceballs: The New One, the 73-year-old actor received a thunderous standing ovation and chants of “Rick! Rick! Rick!” The reveal itself was played out with more than a little theatricality, as you would expect of such a moment, with Moranis not walking out on stage with the rest of the panel. Instead, he was seated in the crowd wearing Dark Helmet’s oversized costume headwear from the original movie, while performers combed the audience in a direct callback to the first movie’s famous gag. Once he was “found,” Moranis made his way to the stage to a reception moderator Kevin Smith summed up by saying, “You made our childhoods better.”

Moranis then had the opportunity to answer the question of why this movie managed to bring him back to Hollywood for his first major movie role in over 30 years. “It just felt like, this is it. It’s time,” he told the crowd, adding that saying yes to the film was “the best decision I’ve ever made.”

The Honey, I Shrunk the Kids actor went on to add that Mel Brooks had been discussing a sequel to his Star Wars parody since 1989, but sometimes these things just take a little longer than others. For Moranis’s part, he added, “I wasn’t really retired. I was just negotiating.”

Why Rick Moranis Left Hollywood and Why Now Is the Right Time for a Comeback

Moranis famously stepped away from Hollywood almost entirely following the tragic cancer-related death of his wife, costume designer Ann Belsky, in 1991. He remained a part of the industry for several years, with his final live-action movie role coming in 1997’s Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. At that point, he found that travelling for movie shoots while trying to care for the couple’s two young children was just too much, and he took a short break. However, he discovered that he did not miss the pressures of fame, and the break appeared to become permanent.

Moranis showed signs that he was ready to dip his toes back into the acting pool when he agreed to star in a reboot of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, until it was cancelled due to COVID restrictions. It seems that after a few minor appearances, Spaceballs: The New One is the movie that finally gives us back an actor who has been missing from screens for far too long.

He isn’t returning alone this time, either. Spaceballs: The New One reunites much of the original’s surviving cast, with Bill Pullman back as Lone Starr, Daphne Zuniga as Princess Vespa and George Wyner as Colonel Sandurz, while Mel Brooks reprises Yogurt — this time realised through motion-capture from ILM and Weta rather than the original’s gold body paint. Brooks and Pullman weren’t at the panel in person but appeared via pre-recorded video, including footage of Brooks recording dialogue and reuniting with his co-stars. The movie also adds newcomers Josh Gad, Keke Palmer, Lewis Pullman and Anthony Carrigan, with Josh Greenbaum directing.

Spaceballs: The New One is a movie that had been batted around several times in the past, and in many ways it has only come to fruition now thanks to Gad, who lobbied Brooks to finally get the production going. As a huge fan of the original, and citing a story about his own daughter demanding to see “Spaceballs 2” after a family viewing of the first film, Gad’s persistence eventually paid off for everyone. Spaceballs: The New One is set for release in cinemas on April 23, 2027.

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