Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) on Netflix
PG19891h 33mAdventureComedyFamily
Inventor Wayne Szalinski's shrinking machine only blows things up, until a stray baseball sets it working. His children and the kids next door end up the size of insects.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.5/10179,115 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes76%
Trailer
Plot summary
Wayne Szalinski has built a machine meant to shrink and grow objects, but it explodes them instead, and his obsession worries his wife Diane, a realtor, and their children, Amy and Nick. Next door, the Thompsons prepare for a fishing trip: Big Russ, Mae, and their sons Little Russ and Ron. While Wayne is away at a conference, a baseball hit by Ron sails through the attic window and blocks the machine's targeting laser, and the shrinking starts working. Ron confesses to Amy and Nick, and he and Nick climb into the attic to retrieve the ball; the machine shrinks the two of them. Amy and Little Russ go searching and are shrunk as well. Wayne comes home, sweeps the debris into a trash bag with the four tiny kids, who escape and find the bag at the curb.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The script was first written with Chevy Chase in mind, because of his popularity in National Lampoon's Vacation, but he was busy filming the second sequel, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and was unavailable, so Rick Moranis was cast as Wayne Szalinski.
- Horner's main title music took cues from Nino Rota's score for Fellini's Amarcord and from Raymond Scott's 1937 piece 'Powerhouse B'. Scott's piece was used without payment or credit, his estate threatened legal action, and Disney settled out of court and changed the cue sheets to credit him.
- It was an unexpected box office success, grossing $222.7 million worldwide, which made it the highest-grossing live-action Disney film of all time, a record it held for five years, and the seventh-highest-grossing film of 1989 worldwide.
- The film was written as Teeny Weenies by Gordon, Ed Naha and Yuzna, and Gordon prepped it to direct, but he had to drop out shortly before filming began due to illness and Joe Johnston was brought in to replace him.
- A three-dimensional film, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!, with physical effects such as wind and water, was created as an attraction at Epcot in 1994, replacing the Michael Jackson film Captain EO, and later opened at Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Park Paris.
