{"id":1110646,"date":"2026-07-25T14:37:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T14:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1110646\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T14:37:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T14:37:32","slug":"eighties-comedy-icon-rick-moranis-met-with-standing-ovation-after-decades-away-from-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1110646\/","title":{"rendered":"Eighties comedy icon Rick Moranis met with standing ovation after decades away from Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rick Moranis<\/a> received a warm welcome at his Comic-Con<\/a> debut following decades out of the spotlight. <\/p>\n

The 73-year-old joined a panel event on Friday 24 July to promote Spaceballs: The New One, a forthcoming sequel to the 1987 Mel Brooks Star Wars<\/a> parody. <\/p>\n

He was met with a standing ovation from fans \u2013 and an on-stage bow from his co-stars, including Josh Gad, Keke Palmer<\/a>, Lewis Pullman, and Daphne Zuniga. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou made our childhoods better,\u201d said moderator Kevin Smith<\/a> as fans chanted: \u201cRick! Rick! Rick!\u201d <\/p>\n

Moranis rose to fame on the Canadian sketch show SCTV in 1980 after which he went on to become one of the most recognisable faces of Eighties cinema, starring in films such as Streets of Fire (1983), Ghostbusters (1984), Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Spaceballs (1987), and Ghostbusters II (1989), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), My Blue Heaven (1990) and The Flintstones (1994). <\/p>\n

He stepped away from live-action acting in 1997 in order to focus on raising his two children after his wife, Ann, died from breast cancer. Moranis has been largely absent from films and TV for most of this century, taking on voice acting roles instead. <\/p>\n

In a rare interview back in 2015<\/a>, Moranis raised the possibility of stepping back in front of the camera given that his children were grown up \u2013 but noted that he remains very \u201cpicky\u201d about which roles he would accept. For example, he had no interest in returning for the 2024 Ghostbusters sequel despite the involvement of other original stars like Bill Murray. <\/p>\n

The right opportunity arose with Spaceballs: The New One, which will see Moranis reprise his role as villain Dark Helmet. <\/p>\n

\"RickRick Moranis (AP1994)<\/p>\n

Amazon MGM Studios officially announced that the actor would star in the highly anticipated sequel back in September following reports earlier that year. <\/p>\n

It marks a major return to screen for Moranis, who said at the event: \u201cThe truth is that I had to say yes to this thing. It was the only way I could get Josh Gad to stop texting me. Actually, I started talking to Mel [Brooks] about the sequel in 1989. We kept talking about it.\u201d <\/p>\n

He joked: \u201cI really wasn\u2019t retired; I was just negotiating.\u201d <\/p>\n

Moranis added: \u201cBut no, this came along right at the right time, and I started talking to these folks and hearing who was going to be in it. I spoke to Josh Greenbaum and I heard that Bill Pullman<\/a> was coming back and that [his son] Lewis was going to be in it too, and it just felt like this is it. It\u2019s time and \u2013 yes. I said yes, and it is the best decision I\u2019ve ever made.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pullman, who played the Han Solo parody character Lone Starr in the original comedy, will appear in the new film alongside his 33-year-old son Lewis. Meanwhile, Brooks is set to reprise his role as Yogurt, a parody of Yoda. <\/p>\n

\"RickRick Moranis is met with applause on stage at Comic-Con in 2026 (Getty)<\/p>\n

Neither Pullman, 72, and Brooks, who turned 100 in June, were present at the panel but both sent video messages to be shown to fans. <\/p>\n

Moranis said that he had not seen Brooks in person in nearly four decades before they began work on the sequel. \u201cI just kept getting phone calls from him every time another Star Wars would come out, and he would say, \u2018We have to make the sequel. We have to make the sequel,\u2019\u201d Moranis said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen this finally happened, I came out to Los Angeles, went over to his house for the first time in 39 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spaceballs 2 is scheduled for release in 2027. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1110647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3940],"tags":[157021,557,4080,47671,54486,302869,77,44154,44888,73894,302872,67413,302871,16802,255594,220813,457,2249,302870,6711,109563,302868,247164,53262,254472,16,15,659],"class_list":["post-1110646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-arts-culture-and-entertainment","tag-california","tag-celebrities","tag-color-image","tag-comic-con","tag-daphne-zuniga","tag-entertainment","tag-film-industry","tag-horizontal","tag-josh-gad","tag-josh-greenbaum","tag-keke-palmer","tag-kevin-smith-film-director","tag-lewis-pullman","tag-medium-group-of-people","tag-panel-discussion","tag-people","tag-photography","tag-rick-moranis","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-comic-con","tag-san-diego-convention-center","tag-spaceballs","tag-talking","tag-theatrical-performance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1110647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}