Rick Moranis is returning to acting after a 28-year hiatus.
Production is underway for the sequel “Spaceballs 2,” marking Moranis’ first live action film role since 1997. During a 2005 interview with USA Today, Moranis, 72, explained that he took a step back from the business to focus on parenting his two children, daughter Rachel and son Mitchell. He became a single dad after his wife Ann Belsky died in 1991.
“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,” Moranis said at the time. “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. In the last few years I’ve been offered a number of parts in movies, and I’ve just turned them down. I don’t know whether I’ll go back to it or not.”
Moranis is best known for films including “Ghostbusters,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” “Little Shop of Horrors” and 1987’s “Spaceballs,” in which he played Lord Dark Helmet. Moranis isn’t the only star from the original film who’ll be reprising his role in the upcoming sequel. Bill Pullman (Lone Starr), Daphne Zuniga (Princess Vespa), George Wyner (Colonel Sandurz), and Mel Brooks (President Skroob/Yoda)” will also return.
A parody of “Star Wars” and other science fiction franchises, the OG “Spaceballs” also starred late actors John Candy (Barf) and Joan Rivers (Dot Matrix). The sequel’s cast also includes Josh Gad, Keke Palmer, Anthony Carrigan, and Bill’s son Lewis Pullman.
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Gad cowrote the “Spaceballs 2” script with Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez. According to a press release, plot details for the film “are being kept under lock, key, and an industrial-strength Schwartz shield.”
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