Wacky inventor Wayne Szalinski is rumored to return to the big screen and said to be played by none other than original star, now retired, Rick Moranis.
Thats right, Sony Pictures was not able to secure Morins to reprise his role as Louis Tully for their upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but Disney was somehow rumored to have peaked his interest to do a reboot to ‘Honey I Shrunk The Kids’.
No word on what the odds are that he might actually turn out to be involved in Shrunk, Disney's planned reinvention of the franchise, but Disney Insider reports that he is in early talks to appear -- his first major live-action appearance since 1997's Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves!.
The new ‘Shrunk’‘, however comes off a lot more darker than some may remember. Depressing even, considering the source material; it reportedly involved bringing in Josh Gad to play a grown-up version of Wayne's son Nick from the original movies, while Wayne himself lost his wife to cancer and has become an often-shrunk shell of his former self.
An initial pitch has been released, according to the Disney Insider report:
Aware that the family ties have loosened over time but seemingly afraid to confront anyone directly. He has been tinkering alone in his attic for decades, dealing with the grief of losing his wife. When we first meet him, he has accidentally shrunk himself and is flying around on a shrunken drone — seemingly lost in a continuous of tinkering and experimenting that often puts himself and his family in jeopardy. He later reveals he shut himself away to try and invent a solution to help shrink Diane's cancer but found it hard to cope when he ran out of time. His guilt and shame is palpable. Through the crisis of the kids getting shrunk, the truth emerges and the bonds begin to redevelop between him and his kids.
Shrunk will reportedly shoot in early 2020 but with no official release date set.