How Disney turned a two-year-old into a 100-foot star of a blockbuster film
In short: Directing a toddler is difficult, but directing two-year-old twins to play a 100-foot giant is an ordeal. To capture the performance for the 1992 sequel Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, the production team resorted to staging fake birthday parties and filming astronomical amounts of footage just to get usable reactions.
The film, a sequel to 1989's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, follows inventor Wayne Szalinski as his toddler son, Adam, is accidentally exposed to a growth machine. The script originated from a rejected project titled Big Baby, which was inspired by the 1957 film The Amazing Colossal Man. After the success of the first film, Disney revived the concept, spending eighteen months reworking the story to include the Szalinski family and shifting the climax to the neon lights of Las Vegas.
Casting the giant toddler proved to be a logistical nightmare. Casting director Renée Rousselot auditioned over 1,000 children before selecting twins Daniel and Joshua Shalikar in December 1990. Because the two-year-olds were initially deemed undirectable, the crew had to improvise. They used a child psychologist's advice to host faux birthday parties on set to keep the boys engaged, and they alternated the twins based on their temperaments—Joshua was more cautious, while Daniel was more adventurous. The production shot an astronomical amount of film, relying on the twins' natural behavior to fill the screen.
The technical execution was equally ambitious. With a $32 million budget, $8 million was dedicated to visual effects. The team used a mix of practical props, such as a 28-foot-high chest replica, and digital compositing. Director Randal Kleiser, chosen for his experience with special effects in Flight of the Navigator, relied on effects producer Tom Smith to manage the complex sequences. Despite the technical prowess, the film received mixed reviews, with critics like Roger Ebert praising the state-of-the-art effects while lamenting the thin, one-joke narrative.
The production was not without legal friction. Disney faced lawsuits from Paul Alter, who claimed the idea mirrored his treatment, Now, That's a Baby!, and from author Kit Reed. The jury ruled in Alter's favor, forcing Disney to pay $300,000 in damages. Ultimately, the film grossed $96 million worldwide, though the twins were not retained for the 1997 direct-to-video sequel, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.
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