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SAN DIEGO — Thank the Schwartz! Rick Moranis has returned to Hollywood.
The “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” star, 73, received a thunderous standing ovation – and chants of “Rick! Rick! Rick!” – on July 24 at the San Diego Comic-Con panel for “Spaceballs: The New One,” the long-awaited comedy sequel that marks his first film role in over 20 years.
“I really wasn’t retired. I was just negotiating,” Moranis quipped during the panel after explaining that he had been talking to Mel Brooks about doing a “Spaceballs” sequel as far back as 1989.
“This came along right at the right time,” he continued, adding that after hearing Bill Pullman would return as Lone Starr alongside his actor son, Lewis Pullman, “It just felt like, this is it. It’s time, and yes. I said yes, and it is the best decision I’ve ever made.”
Moranis took the stage after first popping up in the audience in his iconic Dark Helmet mask from the 1987 comedy, which was primarily a spoof of “Star Wars: A New Hope.” On top of Moranis and Pullman, the sequel also brings back original star Daphne Zuniga as Vespa, not to mention Brooks, 100, as Yogurt. The new stars include Keke Palmer and Josh Gad.
Gad, who also cowrote the film, explained the main theme of the movie is nostalgia, and the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy appears to be one of the primary subjects of parody.
“We all sort of talked thematically about this word nostalgia,” Gad said. “We love movies that look back. We love sequels. We love continuing these stories that we grew up with. But we started to analyze what that really means, why we love it, and we thought ‘Spaceballs’ is the perfect vehicle to catch us up on everything that’s happened in filmdom, and in fan filmdom and pop culture, over the past 40 years.”
Many had speculated Gad would be playing Barf, the late John Candy’s character from the original “Spaceballs.” Gad confirmed this is not the case, though he will be playing a member of the same species.
“Part of the conceit of this movie was I wanted it to be a love letter to John [Candy],” Gad said. “John is one of my biggest idols. I want to put rumors to rest: I am not playing Barf in this movie, OK? That is a role that is singularly played, and will ever be played, by one person.”
“John is at the beating heart of this film, and is a part of the reason why, I think, the movie ultimately has so much heart,” he added.
Moranis said he “kept having to pinch” himself on the set of the sequel, noting it felt “very strange” to put his helmet back on after all these years.
“It started to feel really good, and I really started to love it,” he said. “And who knows, maybe it’s the beginning of many!”
‘Spaceballs: The New One’ trailer skewers ‘Avatar,’ ‘Star Wars’ sequels
The panel ended with a sneak peek at the film, which was a mix of a traditional trailer and a meta monologue about how the film came together: A narrator explained it happened because, “with Hollywood studios merging willy-nilly,” Amazon acquired MGM and “opened the vault” – and worse comes to worse, the movie will “one day be used as a write off.”
What followed was what the narrator described as a “series of clips riddled with unfinished visual effects” teasing the film, and the sizzle reel included a shot at the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy: Dark Helmet duels with Yogurt and declares, “Somehow, I’ve returned … somehow,” a reference to an infamous line about Palpatine’s return in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
The trailer also showed a moment where Yogurt is frozen in Carbonite, leading him to be dubbed “Frozen Yogurt.”
The footage ended with a scene where a Na’vi from “Avatar” walks into a bathroom to pee at a comically large urinal next to Dark Helmet, who turns to him and says, in the Na’vi language, “I see you.”
But the film doesn’t seem to be limiting its spoofs to sci-fi films, and there was plenty of roasting of Marvel during the panel. At one point, a graphic was put up on screen jokingly announcing plans for a cinematic universe of endless “Spaceballs” sequels, a parody of how Marvel frequently lays out its future films at Comic-Con panels.
And when a fan asked the cast what remake of another sci-fi movie they would like to star in, Gad joked about Marvel’s failed efforts to launch a new “Blade” movie with Mahershala Ali: “We’d make a really weird ‘Blade.’ But maybe it would finally get made!”
“Spaceballs: The New One” hits theaters on April 23, 2027.
