Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid is a 1992 American science fiction comedy film directed by Randal Kleiser and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and the second installment of the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids film series. Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Amy O'Neill, and Robert Oliveri return as the Szalinski family, while Keri Russell makes her film debut as Mandy Park. In the film, the family's two-year-old son Adam is accidentally exposed to Wayne's new industrial-sized growth machine, which causes him to gradually grow to enormous size. Wayne's coworker, Dr. Charles Hendrickson, wants the giant Adam stopped at all costs, and wishes to take control of Wayne's invention. The franchise continued with a direct-to-home video sequel, a television series, and theme-park attractions.

Plot
Three years after the events of the first film, inventor Wayne Szalinski has moved to Nevada with his wife Diane and their children. Their older son Nick is now a teenager, their daughter Amy is preparing to leave for college, and their younger son, Adam, is two years old. When Diane leaves with Amy to help her settle into her college dorm, Wayne and Nick are left in charge of Adam. The three of them go to Sterling Labs, where Wayne has constructed an advanced derivative of his shrink ray machine which enlarges objects. He tests it on Adam's favorite toy, Big Bunny. However, when his and Nick's backs are turned, Adam attempts to retrieve the toy and is zapped by the machine, which appears to short circuit and not enlarge the targeted object.

Back home, Adam is exposed to electrical waves from the microwave oven and grows to a height of seven feet. Wayne and Nick take him back to the lab to reverse the process, but are caught and kicked out by Wayne's coworker, Dr. Charles Hendrickson, who wants Wayne's invention for himself. Diane returns home early and discovers what happened, and she, Wayne, and Nick have a hard time trying to take care of the large Adam. Later, Wayne and Diane drive to a warehouse and retrieve Wayne's shrink ray machine to turn Adam back to normal. When Mandy arrives to babysit Adam, she panics and faints, forcing Nick to tie up and gag her. As he explains the situation to her, Adam is exposed to the television's electrical waves and grows to 14 feet before escaping through a wall.

Nick and Mandy search for him, but are taken into custody, with Adam placed into a truck. Wayne and Diane return home, finding Dr. Hendrickson and a U.S. Marshal waiting for them. He has summoned Clifford Sterling, the company chairman, with the plan to fire Wayne, have him and Diane arrested, and experiment on Adam. Sterling arrives and instead praises Wayne when he admits his mistake, and pledges to help Adam while firing Dr. Hendrickson for trying to smear Wayne. At the same time, the truck carrying Adam passes by high voltage lines, exposing him to more electrical waves and causing him to grow to 50 feet, escaping confinement. He mistakes Nick and Mandy for toys and puts them in his overalls pocket before heading for Las Vegas, pursued by his parents and the authorities. Wayne and Sterling figure out the cause of his growth and realize that exposure to Las Vegas' neon lights will make him grow bigger than ever. Dr. Hendrickson conspires with board director Terrence Wheeler to start a boardroom coup to take Sterling out of power. Dr. Hendrickson forcefully boards a military helicopter to attempt to tranquilize Adam.

Wayne is determined to use his shrink ray to shrink Adam back to normal but requires that Adam stand still for twelve seconds. Adam grows to 112 feet, wanders through Fremont Street, Las Vegas, causing mass panic. Dr. Hendrickson arrives by helicopter and starts shooting tranquilizer cartridges at Adam, causing Adam to cry in pain in front of everyone who then express sympathy for him. Diane, deliberately made giant by Wayne's machine, intervenes and she then comforts Adam and makes him stand still while Wayne powers the shrinking machine. The shrinking is successful, and both return to normal size. Dr. Hendrickson arrives to reluctantly congratulate Wayne but is knocked out with a punch by Diane.

Wayne and Diane then realize that Nick and Mandy were still in Adam's pocket and have been shrunk. Wayne quickly finds them, but decides to give them a few minutes of privacy before returning them to normal size as the two appear to have become romantically attached. A Nevada State Police trooper with them asks the Szalinskis what are they going to do with Big Bunny who is still 112 feet tall, Adam decides for them all by playing with it.

Cast

 * Rick Moranis as Wayne Szalinski, a wacky inventor.
 * Marcia Strassman as Diane Szalinski, Wayne's wife.
 * Lloyd Bridges as Clifford Sterling, the president of Sterling Labs.
 * Robert Oliveri as Nick Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's teenage son and middle child.
 * John Shea as Dr. Charles Hendrickson, Wayne's insolent coworker.
 * Keri Russell as Mandy Park, Adam's babysitter and Nick's love interest.
 * Ron Canada as U.S. Marshal Preston Brooks
 * Amy O'Neill as Amy Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's daughter and oldest child.
 * Daniel & Joshua Shalikar as Adam Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's two-year-old son and youngest child.
 * Linda Carlson as nosy neighbor #1
 * Leslie Neale as Constance Winters
 * Gregory Sierra as Terence Wheeler, a board member at Sterling Labs who is allied with Dr. Hendrickson.
 * Julia Sweeney as nosy neighbor #2
 * Michael Milhoan as Captain Ed Myerson, a military pilot who reluctantly pilots Dr. Hendrickson to confront Adam.

Production
The original film, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), was co-written by Stuart Gordon. Meanwhile, actor Garry Goodrow and his friend Peter Elbling had written an unrelated script titled Big Baby. It was about a toddler who grew to giant size by a freak accident involving a growth ray and eventually terrorized Las Vegas. The story was inspired by the film The Amazing Colossal Man (1957). Gordon optioned Big Baby and pitched it to Disney along with the script that would become Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Disney passed on Big Baby initially.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was a financial success, prompting Disney to register numerous names for a potential sequel. Gordon successfully pitched the Big Baby script to Disney as the basis for a sequel. Screenwriter Thom Eberhardt was hired to make revisions to Big Baby; a year and a half was spent reworking the script to feature the Szalinskis. A new climax set among Las Vegas' neon lights was also added, as opposed to a power plant in the original script. The project was retitled Honey, I Blew Up the Baby, before taking on the name Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.

Gordon turned down the chance to direct the film, believing he would have limited creative control under Disney, although he remained as executive producer and made suggestions on-set. Jeremiah Chechik was hired to direct, as Disney considered him ideal after seeing his previous film, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989). Dawn Steel, the former president of Columbia Pictures, was hired as producer, marking her debut in such a position. Disney removed Chechik from the project a few months into pre-production, out of concern that his ideas were too ambitious and costly. The studio was also concerned about Steel's lack of experience, hiring Edward Feldman to handle most of her on-set duties.

Randal Kleiser was hired as the new director, due to his prior experience with special effects while directing Disney's Flight of the Navigator (1986). He had also taken over directing responsibility on Disney's White Fang (1991), which demonstrated to the studio that he could bring a project in on time and budget.

Casting
Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Amy O'Neill, and Robert Oliveri reprised their respective characters from the original film: Wayne, Diane, Amy, and Nick Szalinski. The project also marked the feature film debut of Keri Russell. Kleiser and the main cast would later return for the 3D show Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, presented at several Disney parks from the 1990s to 2010.

Casting director Renée Rousselot looked at more than 1,000 small children for someone to portray Adam, the newest addition to the Szalinski clan. She searched for mostly three- to four-year-old boys because a younger child was expected to be problematic. She came across two-year-old twins Daniel and Joshua Shalikar from New Jersey and immediately cast them in December 1990. It was rare for actors as young as them to be cast in such a large role.

Feldman said the twins were initially "undirectable", stating, "We couldn't get them to respond or smile or do anything." However, the film crew retained them, as a recasting would cost $2 million. A variety of methods were used to resolve the acting issue. The twins were allowed to do whatever they wanted on set, and were filmed the entire time in hopes of acquiring usable footage, some of it requiring script alterations to suit the material that was shot. Some scenes between Moranis and the twins were improvised. The film crew, at the suggestion of child psychologist Joann Smith, also began picking a different crew member each day to celebrate a faux birthday. According to Smith, "If the boys think it's a party, they're more willing to work." Kleiser recalled, "You can't just tell a 2-year-old, 'Go stand on your mark.' They have to be tricked into doing everything. The amount of film we shot was astronomical. Danny was generally better at improvising and fresh reactions. Josh was better at following directions, so we would alternate."

Kleiser and a baby consultant would plan the twins' scenes several days in advance. One twin would act in the morning while the other was eating lunch or taking a nap. They were sometimes better-behaved and worked more efficiently while together on set. Effects producer Tom Smith said, "On his own, Dan was almost too adventuresome to repeat one move, and Josh seemed very cautious. Put them together and they could do anything." At the time of production, the twins were contracted for potential appearances in two more Honey films. However, the role was recast for the 1997 sequel Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.

Filming and effects
Filming began on June 17, 1991, and concluded on October 10. The first filming location was in Simi Valley, California, for scenes involving the Szalinskis' house. Two replicas of the house were also built by production designer Leslie Dilley, one of them scaled down 43 percent for scenes where Adam has been enlarged. A significant filming location was Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Wayne's laboratory was among the sets built at the Burbank facility. On-site filming also took place in Las Vegas, including the climax along Fremont Street, which was closed off for filming. A scene involving a water park – where Nick works and Mandy is introduced – was filmed at Wet 'n Wild, also in Las Vegas. The final shooting location was Orlando, with filming at Disney-MGM Studios. This was followed by a warehouse scene shot at the nearby Disney World merchandise distribution center.

The film was produced on a $32 million budget, with $8 million going toward special and visual effects. Because Kleiser had only minimal experience with special effects, he relied heavily on Smith. The film was originally scheduled to release in March 1992, but this was pushed back several months to avoid rushing the digital compositing work. While post-production special effects were used heavily throughout the film, some effects were practical (shot on-set). When Adam knocks down his bedroom door, Dilley created a set with miniature furniture about four feet away from the camera, while the adult actors would be about fifteen feet away.

Various props, created by Peter Chesney's Image Engineering, were used for giant Adam's rampage in Las Vegas. Among these was a 28-foot-high replica of Adam's chest, used for scenes involving Nick and Mandy in his oversized pocket. Other props included a pair of giant sneakers measuring 17 feet long, and a replica of the Vegas Vickie sign. A portion of this sequence also depicts giant Adam playing a neon guitar sign from a Hard Rock Cafe.

Stunt double Alex Daniels was used for scenes featuring seven-foot Adam, with an oversized puppet head worn to depict the character's face. Daniels studied videotapes of the twins to replicate their movements. The head was created by Kevin Yagher and was an early idea of Chechik's. Kleiser said "when we didn't light that baby head properly, it came across as a giant Chucky doll! Most of those shots worked by fluke." The hair on the puppet had to be dyed to match the twins, after their mother declined to have their own hair color modified.

Lawsuits
Disney was sued in 1991 by Paul Alter, a game show television director, who claimed to have come up with the idea of an oversized toddler after babysitting his granddaughter and watching her topple over building blocks. He wrote a film treatment titled Now, That's a Baby! Alter claimed there were several similarities between the film and his treatment, which consisted of the baby daughter of two scientists falling victim to a genetic experiment gone wrong instead of an enlarging ray. The case went to trial in 1993, with the jury finding in Alter's favor. Disney was forced to pay $300,000 in damages.

Author Kit Reed also filed a lawsuit, alleging similarities with her short story The Attack of the Giant Baby. The case was settled with Reed getting a "special recognition" credit.

Home media
The film was first released on VHS and LaserDisc on January 6, 1993. It was released on a bare-bones DVD in 2002. While the VHS release contained no bonus material besides a music video, the LaserDisc release contains the 1992 animated short film, Off His Rockers directed by Barry Cook, which accompanied the theatrical release. To date, Off His Rockers has only appeared on the LaserDisc release, making its availability rare, although the short can be viewed on YouTube.

The film was released on VHS in 1997, alongside its predecessor to coincide with the release of the third film in the series, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.

Box office
The film opened on July 17, 1992 in 2,492 theaters in the United States and Canada, almost twice as many as the first film. It opened at number one ahead of A League of Their Own on its opening weekend with $11 million. The film ultimately grossed a total of $58.7 million in the United States and Canada. Internationally it grossed $37 million for a worldwide total of $96 million.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 40% based on reviews from 20 critics, with an average rating of 4.85/10. On Metacritic the film has a score of 50 based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Desson Howe of The Washington Post claimed that the film "feels narratively limited. It's a one-joke movie: Adam just gets bigger and bigger. All Moranis needs to do is get the shrinker from the last movie and turn it on Adam." Also from The Washington Post, Hal Hinson agreed that it was "a one-joke film" while also adding the film "squanders most of the comic opportunities its premise offers. As one-joke movies go, it's fairly inoffensive but also never better than mildly diverting. Roger Ebert, reviewing for the Chicago Sun-Times, criticized the weak story writing that there "may be, for all I know, comic possibilities in a giant kid, but this movie doesn't find them." He further concluded that the "special effects, on the other hand, are terrific, as they were in the first movie. The filmmakers are able to combine the giant baby and the "real world" in shots that seem convincing, and the image of the toddler walking down Glitter Gulch is state-of-the-art. Too bad the movie relies on special effects to carry the show, and doesn't bring much else to the party."

Soundtrack
Intrada Records released the record in 1992, in time for the film's release. The score was composed and conducted by Bruce Broughton, who would return to provide the score for Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees appears in it. So does "Loco-Motion" by Carole King, Gerry Goffin, and "Ours If We Want It" written by Tom Snow and Mark Mueller. The soundtrack album consists of just the score. In 2017, the label released an expanded edition included Broughton's score for Off His Rockers, the animated short that preceded the film in cinemas.