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CBC
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
The Naked Gun reboot is 'trying to constantly make you laugh'
Social Sharing The Naked Gun, a classic cop spoof franchise from the late '80s, has now been rebooted for a new generation. The fourth film in the series stars Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., who must work to prevent the closure of Police Squad by — you guessed it — solving a case. The film also features Pamela Anderson, and is directed by The Lonely Island's Akiva Schaffer as well as produced by Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy. With such prolific comedy minds behind it, perhaps it's unsurprising that the film has received great reviews from audiences and critics alike for its commitment to packing as many jokes in on-screen as possible. Today on Commotion, film critics Alison Willmore and Adam Nayman join guest host Rad Simonpillai to talk about The Naked Gun, and why this just might be the summer of the comedy reboot. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, including a conversation about Happy Gilmore 2, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Rad: Alison, how are you seeing this Naked Gun kind of drawing from the original, but also standing apart from it? Alison: You know, it is a spoof. The original Naked Gun was a spoof of these very serious-faced cop dramas. And in some ways, this Naked Gun is riffing on the idea of spoofing those, because it's a sort of cop drama that isn't even really the kind that we're doing now, right? It's not really making fun of Law & Order …. The reason that I was excited for it coming from [director] Akiva Schaffer, who is someone who I think really understands and is, like, a comedy dork … is that it just understands that this is a movie that should be dense with jokes. And they should be silly jokes that come at a speed and a pace, and be unapologetically goofy, or language-based or sight-gag-based in a way that I don't think you get nearly as much anymore. So to see something that is just trying to constantly make you laugh in the moment does feel rare. Rad: You said "in a way that we don't get anymore," and Adam, I think you kind of pointed that out in your review. You said a lot of the jokes in this movie are the kind that we just don't get nowadays. I think I know what you were getting at there, but can you explain that? Adam: The whole Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, ZAZ thing when they started in the '70s was predicated on the idea that these were ancient jokes back then, you know? And the movies kind of keep moving the goalposts in terms of cultural references. There's a great running joke in this where Liam Neeson is nostalgic specifically for the year 2002. Like, he talks about the movie Chicago, and his TiVo and Catherine Zeta-Jones. They're always old jokes. So I think the joy of the ZAZ thing is that the old jokes always work. You just put a new surface on them. And that is something that [Seth] MacFarlane and Schaffer, who are aging Gen Xers, understand and embrace. Because Family Guy, maybe more than The Lonely Island, but both of those as comedy institutions are under the sign of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker — that joke density, that idea that you watch the background as much as the foreground, the idea that something that's really, really stupid, if it's specific, comes all the way back around to being funny. So I think they honour their source material, without betraying what makes their own work funny. And then to Alison's point, it is making fun of and playing with cop films, and then melding it with some sort of hyper-contemporary stuff like AI, and big tech, and Elon Musk and self-driving cars — not because it has any kind of analytical, social-critical agenda. Just because those surfaces help those jokes work. And it's so important … that Neeson is old, or older, because he is a living link to, I think, an analog era of movie-making. Even though he's not an '80s star, he has some of what Leslie Nielsen had, which is he just sweats credibility as a guy who is kind of actually in movies like this. And that's one of the reasons, on top of him being so talented, why he is so funny in this movie.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Liam Neeson on Why ‘The Naked Gun' Reboot Is Needed: ‘Because We're All F—ed'
Liam Neeson, who stars in the new 'The Naked Gun' with Pamela Anderson, has a very simple reason why he believes audiences need the reboot of the classic comedy. 'Because we're all fucked. And we need a few giggles,' he told Variety Monday at the movie's New York City premiere. More from Variety 'White Lotus' Stars Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell and Jon Gries to Be Honored at Creative Coalition's Humanitarian Awards (EXCLUSIVE) Eddie Murphy on Bonding with His 'The Pickup' Co-Star Pete Davidson and Making Action Movies at Age 64: 'I Feel Like Me Still - Just a Little Stiffer' Diana Ross Wows During Almost Three-Hour Hollywood Bowl Concert: 'Either You Move It or You Lose It' He delivered the line in the deadpan style of his on-screen persona, Frank Drebin Jr., the biological (and spiritual) heir to Leslie Nielsen's iconic police lieutenant. The character last graced the big screen in 1994. Neeson did joint interviews with Anderson, who smirked and nodded along with his bleak assessment of the world. But don't ask about how the sausage is made. When one reporter inquired about how they broke the ice on set, Neeson scrunched his face in confusion. 'We broke the ice?' he repeated back, again channeling the oblivious Frank Drebin charm. The pair then laughed in unison and said they jumped right in headfirst. 'It just feels like people are ready to have a big, good-natured laugh about the policing situation in Los Angeles,' producer Seth MacFarlane joked while introducing the film at the SVA Theatre. 'We really nailed the timing of this.' MacFarlane was likely referencing the ICE raids that sparked mass protests in LA. He may not have know that as the 'Naked Gun' was getting underway, a gunman had just opened fire in a Midtown office building and killed four people. Paramount's 'Naked Gun' reboot sidesteps any attempt at satirizing contemporary events in favor of a more absurd plot. Drebin Jr. is racing to stop a deranged billionaire from unleashing a toxic gas that'll revert civilians to their primal form while the ultra-wealthy hide in a private bunker, where they'll be treated to a nonstop performance from 'Weird Al' Yankovic. The siren-blaring question, however, is whether this kind of classic comedy will resonate with younger audiences who consume humor in bite-sized chunks on social media. YouTuber-turned-actor Liza Koshy believes the rapid-fire pace of jokes will hook them in. 'It's back to back to back,' Koshy told Variety. 'It engages your attention span just like scrolling on TikTok would. So it's going to be a dopamine rush.' Yankovic, who's dared the world to be stupid since 1985, said Hollywood hit pause on goofy theatrical comedies after 'the quality maybe went down or we got overly bombarded with movies like that.' He now hopes 'The Naked Gun' reboot 'heralds a new age of comedy in the theaters.''There's nothing wrong with laughing at stupid things,' he added. 'People say, 'Oh, we live in tough times and we need comedies like this more now than ever,' but I don't know that there's ever been a time in the history of the world where everything has been perfect and we didn't need comedy. I think comedy is always welcome.''The Naked Gun' opens in theaters Aug. 1. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? Final Emmy Predictions: Talk Series and Scripted Variety - New Blood Looks to Tackle Late Night Staples Solve the daily Crossword
Digital Trends
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
I liked the Naked Gun reboot, but the original movie is still better
Having premiered in theaters to near universal praise, Liam Neeson's The Naked Gun has met many people's expectations as a reboot of Leslie Nielsen's iconic comedy film franchise of the same name. In true Naked Gun fashion, the new movie sees Neeson playing the buffoonish Frank Drebin This legacy sequel effectively replicates many of the elements that made the first Naked Gun movie so funny and beloved. Nevertheless, the film that started the entire franchise still retains some key qualities lacking in the reboot, still making it the best Naked Gun movie ever made. The level of comedy in the reboot still falls behind the original 2025's The Naked Gun thrives thanks to the leadership of two of modern comedy's brightest minds, director Akiva Schaffer (Saturday Night Live) and producer Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy). Thanks to them, the new Naked Gun provides viewers with a large, steady supply of clever comedy. The movie even revitalizes many of the original's best running gags (i.e., Frank's comedic voice-overs, his bad driving, and the characters misunderstanding each other's dialogue). Recommended Videos However, the original Naked Gun film is packed with even more hilarious surprises and jokes. There were some bits of comedy in the reboot that seemed a little too drawn out. There were also times where another joke could've been squeezed in. The classic opening credits sequence is (mostly) missing In its first few minutes, the new Naked Gun film broke a beloved tradition of the franchise by not featuring a new version of its classic opening credits sequence. The first three Naked Gun movies would open with a police car driving through the city and all sorts of bizarre settings, including a roller coaster, a water slide, a women's locker room, and even a T-Rex pen at Jurassic Park. This gag has become one of the most popular trademarks of the franchise, so it seemed like the reboot would've kept it going. Though the reboot does reuse the first film's opening credits sequence at the end, it doesn't add anything new to this running gag. It seems to appear there only to invoke the audience's nostalgia. Overall, it seems like the reboot missed the opportunity to create some incredible new laughs by bringing back this iconic gag. At least we still have Stewie's homage to this sequence in Family Guy. The first Naked Gun film has no age The Naked Gun reboot sets itself apart from previous films by having its story take place in 2020s America. It's tailored for a specific era, given the inclusion of the Internet and electric cars in the narrative. While the original Naked Gun is set in the 1980s, there is a timeless aura to its story and humor that still appeals to modern audiences. The story hardly feels old-fashioned, and the jokes haven't aged a day. Though the world's opinion of star O.J. Simpson has changed a lot, it's even more hilarious and enjoyable to see him getting hurt left and right as Officer Nordberg. The reboot is missing the iconic original score Nothing beats composer Ira Newborn's musical score for the 1988 film. Whenever one hears the trumpets and saxophone play in the film's music, they would immediately know they were listening to the sounds of the original Naked Gun. Meanwhile, the reboot doesn't draw from the franchise's iconic score until the end credits start to roll. Though this also helps the new film distinguish itself from its predecessor, the score ends up being far less memorable. On the plus side, Neeson does record a hilarious, rambling love song to Pamela Anderson's character, which audiences can hear during the credits. Nielsen still surpasses Neeson as Frank Drebin Liam Neeson did a fantastic job playing the role of Frank Drebin's son in the Naked Gun reboot. The actor gives a hysterical performance thanks to his deadpan delivery and his character's dimwitted antics, which successfully invoke Nielsen's own character from the original Naked Gun movies. However, Nielsen still carries an 'everyman' aura that makes his character even more hilarious and compelling. Neeson is well known for portraying vengeful, ultraviolent action heroes in movies like Taken, and that persona shines through in his performance as Frank Drebin Jr. In the end, Schaffer and MacFarlane's The Naked Gun did a fine job forging its own identity as a comedy film while living up to its predecessors. The reboot features an excellent brand of comedy and quick wit that should appeal to veteran Naked Gun fans, as well as newcomers to the franchise. The movie doesn't reach the high caliber of the first Naked Gun, but it still sets a very good example for the franchise going forward.
Fox News
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Original 'Naked Gun' director offers his reasons for skipping Liam Neeson reboot
The director of the first two "Naked Gun" movies said he will not be seeing the 2025 reboot of his classic spoof series. In an interview with Fox News Digital, filmmaker David Zucker declared that he would not be watching "The Naked Gun" starring Liam Neeson, stating the entire concept of a "Naked Gun" reboot was unoriginal and played out. "I don't see any reason to see it," he said. "And so, it's like, well, Jim Abrahams said, if your daughter became a prostitute, would you go watch her work?" Zucker said elsewhere, quoting the late co-director of "Airplane!", another classic comedy Zucker co-directed. The director clarified that, despite his harsh view of 2025's "Naked Gun" reboot, he bears no ill will towards the film's cast and crew, like Neeson, or producer Seth MacFarlane – the creator of "Family Guy." "So, Seth MacFarlane came in. He's a big, successful producer, and he came in with a big star, Liam Neeson. I don't have anything against Liam Neeson. I think he's a wonderful actor. He is a fine actor, but generally for spoof, you don't really need that," he said. "Plus, the way I approach movies is not to do the same thing over again. I didn't even want to do 'Naked Gun 3.' And so, somebody else directed it. I produced it while I was writing another movie." Zucker stressed that he would have done "something new" with another "Naked Gun" rather than repackage his original idea. The director said that prior to Paramount Global greenlighting the Neeson "Naked Gun" he workshopped potential ideas for a "Naked Gun 4." They included a storyline involving the son of police detective Frank Drebin (played by actor Leslie Nielsen in the original) as a spy. "[What] Pat and Mike and I worked on for a year was to have Drebin's son, but really his young son, a 30-year-old, and not an LA cop scenario – but a 'Mission Impossible,' James Bond, 'Bourne Identity' international spoof, international spy thriller. So, I always have wanted to do something new," he said. Zucker also told Fox News Digital that he doesn't want to give people the impression he's calling for a boycott of the reboot, calling out media reports that have made it seem that way. "I read things where it says, 'David Zucker is leading a boycott.' I'm not leading a [boycott] – all I said was that I have no interest in seeing it." He made sure to note that the new film's director, Akiva Schaffer, is "a super nice guy" who, along with MacFarlane, asked Zucker in vain for advice on the film. "But there's nothing I can do to help them because it's not what I would have done," he declared. Elsewhere, he said, "I think the whole thing is wrong, because that's not how I would do movies. I don't want to copy someone else's work." Zucker told Fox News Digital that he believes that the entire film industry is suffering from this lack of originality. "Now it's all about – you know, the studio executives, for the most part, are frightened. And so that's why all you have now is, you know, big stars, superhero movies, big special effects, Tom Cruise movies," he said, though he clarified he loves Tom Cruise movies. He added that industry executives are "absolutely playing it safe and also they, you know, they tend to whore after big producers and big stars." "But mostly, nobody has any new ideas. They want to copy the old ideas, like 'Naked Gun 4' is really just a copy of an old idea. I mean, it's a 40-year-old idea to do an older actor as a police detective." Although he didn't helm the latest version of "The Naked Gun," Zucker has been hard at work on multiple projects, including a totally new original spoof film, "Star of Malta." The filmmaker described his upcoming film as "completely new." He said that it's "set in 1949. It's going to look like one of those film noir movies that were done from 1945 to 1955. And it's a really great story. And it is a believable story with a young actor cast. And you really believe that they're real people." Providing a hint of what audiences could expect from the film's comedy, he added, "It's really what I would say – it's spoof 2.0. And it's really the next thing." Zucker noted that it's going to be an indie release, because that's just how opposed big studios are to original projects these days. "If you want to do something original, you have to go with the indie route. And 'Star of Malta' is only a $10 million budget. So, we'll be able to do that." Zucker also mentioned his other new project, "Master Crash: A Crash Course In Spoof Comedy." The project is 15-episode instructional web series that teaches viewers the filmmaker's 15 rules of writing parody. The first episode of Master Crash debuted last month. The filmmaker told Fox News Digital he wanted to make the course because he wants budding comedy filmmakers and writers to know the "discipline" that has to go into writing classic spoof or parody films for them to work. "You know, it was all scenes, crazy and zany and weird, but there was a discipline to it," he explained. "And that discipline is – not only in the general story that we're telling – it has to be a believable story. And when I didn't tell a believable story with a believable character, with an arc, the movies weren't as successful." "And then also you need the knowledge that we've gained about how to write the jokes and then how to direct the jokes," he said, adding, "There's a lot of method to it."
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Naked Gun' Filmmaker Akiva Schaffer Explains Why He Limited the Reboot to One O.J. Joke
Writer-director Akiva Schaffer initially thought a reboot of The Naked Gun was blasphemous until he realized the full potential of having Liam Neeson step into the shoes of Leslie Nielsen. In 2021, producer Seth MacFarlane was tasked with reinventing ZAZ's (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker) beloved spoof comedy franchise after three decades and a few failed revivals along the way. The Family Guy creator's first order of business was to attach Neeson, whom he'd worked with on A Million Ways to Die in the West and Ted 2. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'The Naked Gun': What the Critics Are Saying 'The Naked Gun' Review: Liam Neeson Nails the Deadpan Goofiness, but Pamela Anderson Is the Scene-Stealer in Uneven Legacy Sequel Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson Gush About Their Team-Up in 'The Naked Gun': "So Much Fun" From there, MacFarlane's president at Fuzzy Door Productions, Erica Huggins, handled the director search, which quickly led her to Schaffer, due to the warm reception he'd just received for Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022). Of course, she was also a fan of his 2016 cult hit, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, as well as his longtime comedy trio, The Lonely Island, consisting of childhood friends Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone. Schaffer's commitment didn't come automatically. He insisted on a page-one rewrite of a script that a couple Family Guy writers had written. Even MacFarlane himself has referred to that iteration as too much of a 'cover band version' of 1988's The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! Schaffer also wanted his Rescue Rangers writers, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, to help him pen a new take, one that didn't overly play the hits of the original Naked Gun trilogy, such as the cherished opening credits featuring composer Ira Newborn's Naked Gun and Police Squad! theme. The compromise was to place it in the closing credits. 'I love the siren opening in the first three Naked Gun movies just like everyone else loves it, but that doesn't mean I need to see it again. And I did get a lot of pushback on that, I'll be honest,' Schaffer tells The Hollywood Reporter. 'That opening was spoofing M Squad, and I'm not [spoofing] a Lee Marvin 1950s TV show anymore. I was like, 'Our opening credits should feel like Terminator 2.' We're [spoofing] now, but anything from 1990 till now was also open season.' When Schaffer informed his friends that he was tackling a new Naked Gun, the first question everyone asked involved the manner in which he would handle O.J. Simpson's Naked Gun character, Nordberg. Thus, during the first week of writing, Schaffer and co. wrote the 'Hall of Legends' scene that was prominently featured in the film's first teaser. Neeson's Frank Drebin Jr. and Paul Walter Hauser's Ed Hocken Jr. pay tribute to framed photos of Nielsen's Drebin Sr. and George Kennedy's Hocken Sr., before cutting wide to reveal a total of ten cops giving tearful salutes to their late parents. Then the camera transitions to a framed portrait of Simpson's Nordberg, prompting Moses Jones' Nordberg Jr. to break the fourth wall, shake his head and not deliver his own sentimental moment. The joke took the internet by storm, and anytime the teaser or trailer played at movie theaters, the moment always set off a big reaction. But to his credit, Schaffer never strummed that chord again due to the controversy that continues to swirl around a figure as notorious as the late Simpson. 'To be honest, we never wrote another O.J. joke. We just went, 'Yep, that takes care of that,'' Schaffer says. 'I didn't know that the joke would kill as hard as it did at our first test screening. If I had known that, then maybe I would've written other jokes. But you want to be respectful of everything that revolves around him, so it's not something I really took glee in. We just had to acknowledge it in a way we thought was not dancing on anybody's misfortunes.' Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Schaffer also discusses how Neeson and Pamela Anderson ended up being paired together in the now critically acclaimed reboot, as well as the currently fragile state of the studio comedy. *** A fourth installment has gone through quite the development journey the last 16 years. Once you joined in the fall of 2022 for this iteration, what was the key to finally getting it up and running? Well, Liam had already been attached for quite some time. I remember reading about it at some point and being a little jealous. I was like, 'Ooh, that's a good idea.' So when I got the incoming call, the Liam part of it definitely piqued my interest. But if it was just, 'Hey, what's your take on a new Naked Gun?' I would've been like, 'Of course not. The first Naked Gun is so good, and there's no room to make it better. You can only do different.' But the Liam part was like, 'Ooh, I see my version of it at least,' which is now what's in theaters. But despite Liam's involvement, the project still hadn't moved forward, so how did you get the ball rolling? They had an existing script, but I don't think they were trying to make that version of it. I read that script, and no offense to it, but it was not the version I would want to make. So the meeting was more of a meeting where I went, 'Hey, if this is going to be me, I'm super excited, but I would start from scratch. This is my version of the movie …' I then laid out, not the story or anything, but the styles of jokes and how I would want it to feel, look and sound. Once they bought into that and thought it was a good idea, then I was like, 'Oh, I need writers to do it with me. I don't think anyone can write this kind of movie alone.' I'd just had a really good experience with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand on Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. So I asked the studio first if it would be cool, and when they said yes, I went to them and said, 'I have a motivated studio that says we have Liam Neeson wanting to do a Naked Gun. We just don't have a movie. It's so rare that we don't have to talk them into anything. They want to do it, but what they don't have is a director and a script. If we treat this seriously, I think we could get it made. I'm going to be a third of your writing team, though.' So we joined forces, and we treated it like a green-lit movie or a TV show. We went into my office Monday through Friday and worked on it as if we were filming it no matter what. That's how you keep momentum going on a movie like this. If we had just done development, we'd still be writing it, but we just treated it like we had to make it. This would've been long before your tenure, but is it true that there was once a version where Andy Samberg was supposed to play Frank Drebin's 30-something son? If there was, it was news to him. He saw the same press you're referring to and he went, 'What!?' The precarious state of the theatrical comedy has been widely discussed the last few years, and your marketng had some fun with it as well. went as far to say that , in terms of its genre, is this summer's most important movie. Have you tried to ignore this notion that the next five years of the studio comedy might be determined by your movie? Yes, and I liked reading that article. It's a fun article to write, and it's a fun thing to talk about. But journalists like you who do this for a living and have a bird's-eye view of the industry are better equipped to talk about the real ebbs and flows and why comedy is at such a place, theatrically, and what the hopes are. Overall, I almost equate it to one of those fake stories, like, 'Can female-led movies be box office smashes?' I'm sure they told that story around the release of 9 to 5 [in 1980], and then they were like, 'I guess women-led movies can make money.' [Note: 9 to 5 grossed over $100 million against $10 million, which was largely unheard of in 1980.] And when Bridesmaids became the best comedy of the last 20 years, they were like, 'Whoa!' Then there's Girls Trip and Barbie. It's the same story over and over. If it's a fantastic movie, then any movie can be a [box-office hit]. So I really hope The Naked Gun works, but if it works, I don't necessarily know what it changes. Whoever had the idea to pair Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson must be patting themself on the back right now. (Schaffer smiles.) They're truly great together in the film. I know Liam was the top choice from day one, but how did Pam enter the mix months before 's release? We wrote the entire script not knowing who anybody else would be besides Liam. And when it came time for casting, the question of Beth, our femme fatale, was a really difficult one. Spoof is not an easy skill. You could be an Oscar-winning actor, and you could be terrible at spoof. You can also be an Oscar-nominated actor like Liam Neeson and be wonderful at it. I'm just saying that it's not the norm. You're not judging by the same metrics. The actor has to be able to play something so stupid in a way where it seems like they don't know they're telling a joke. [Naked Gun creators] The Zuckers have said it better, and I always end up paraphrasing and saying it wrong, but you don't play it straight. You don't play it stiff. You play it real. If your character is happy, you're smiling. If your character is sad, you're sad. You're not playing it overly serious; you're just playing the scenes. You don't know that what you're saying are jokes or are supposed to be funny. But that's really hard to do. Most actors will telegraph the joke a bit and know they're being funny. But Pam has the thing that Priscilla Presley had. She can say the UCLA joke with a little twinkle in her eye, and you really believe the character is playing at the height of her intelligence. The character has no clue that what she's saying is not the right thing to say. So we just got lucky that she wanted to do it and was so right for it. At certain points, Beth was almost a bunch of other people until we realized Pam was there and could do it. According to the internet, Pam said no to (1994). Did you ever ask her if this was true? I only learned that in the last couple of weeks, and I've seen some interviews of her being asked that. She was like, 'I think that's blown out [of proportion]. It just came across my desk at some point, and I couldn't do it for various reasons. I don't know that they were offering it to me.' Now I'm paraphrasing her interview that I saw, but I don't think it was exact. She was in Scary Movie 3, which was honestly a hit against her in my mind. I wanted everybody to be such a surprise, but I love that she's the encapsulation of this movie in terms of her life. She seems like somebody that would've been in one of the '90s movies, and that's so nice because it gives authenticity to the vibe. She's also in this amazing second act of her career that is totally new and completely different. It's just like what Liam's Frank Jr. says [to Frank Sr.'s picture] in the beginning of the movie: 'I want to be just like you, but at the same time, be completely different and original.' She embodies that trajectory. There's a couple of jokes, such as the little girl disguise that Liam's character wears at the start. You've also got three layers of what filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie calls 'mousetraps.' They're staged environments that are meant to force a confession. I wish I had known what to call them. You've even got former composer Lorne Balfe scoring the film like it's a movie in certain places. There's also some -sounding score in the opening bank robbery … And Jerry Goldsmith vibes throughout. Overall, did Paramount encourage this type of franchise synergy? No, but they didn't discourage it. I am such a huge fan of all the Mission: Impossible movies, but specifically Fallout, which has that hospital mousetrap. Fallout is just one of the best globetrotting spy thrillers or action-spy films. It might be the best one of all time — that and Casino Royale, if you even consider them the same genre. It seems like they are. So I would say those are the two best ever made, and [our spoofs] were definitely made with love. But those mousetraps are hilarious because if you suspend disbelief for one second, the IMF is essentially those three guys [Ethan, Benji, Luther] and whoever else is along for the ride. They are usually operating rogue and under some sort of pressure. And somehow, they can still build a completely functioning hospital set with lighting and hinged walls for dramatic reveals. There are so many cinematic choices that are so perfect for [The Naked Gun], and being my favorite movie, [spoofing it] was just perfect on every level. The O.J. Simpson/Nordberg joke that was featured in the first teaser really struck a chord, and while you could've gone back to that well many times, did you and your co-writers decide that one showstopping joke was enough? We didn't get pushback or anything. On the edgy jokes, people would go, 'Ooh, I don't know.' And I'd be like, 'Don't worry. The movie is going to be 85 minutes. A fourth of the script is getting cut. Anything that doesn't work is going to be cut.' So that's the way I made everyone relax all the time. [Writer's Note: The 85-minute runtime was meant to mirror the first two Naked Gun movies' 85-minute runtimes. The third film is 82 minutes.] When I first told friends, 'Hey, I'm actually about to write a Naked Gun,' they'd go, 'What are you going to do about O.J?' So, right away, I was like, 'Oh, right. That's the elephant in the room that has to be addressed.' The Hall of Legends scene that was in the teaser then answers everything. Is Frank going to be Frank Sr.? Is he going to be replacing Leslie Nielsen and trying to be Leslie Nielsen? No, he's going to be Frank Jr., and it's Liam. He's going to lean into what he's known for. How's it going to look? What's the music going to be like? It's all right there, and it was all stuff that was written in the first week as we were asking ourselves those questions. To be honest, we never wrote another O.J. joke. We just went, 'Yep, that takes care of that.' That's all it ever was. I didn't know that the joke would kill as hard as it did at our first test screening, and I was like, 'Oh, it's really good. This audience loves it.' If I had known that, then maybe I would've written other jokes. I don't know. But it already felt like it was pushing. You want to be respectful of everything that revolves around him, so it's not something I really took glee in. We just had to acknowledge it in a way we thought was not dancing on anybody's misfortunes. Legacy sequels often go for low-hanging fruit, and I respect that you never referenced Enrico Pallazzo or created another 'nothing to see here' gag. In general, what was your philosophy regarding callbacks and references to the original trilogy? As a viewer, I just don't get a lot out of [legacy sequels]. There's a lot of great sequels out there, not legacy sequels, like 22 Jump Street. They did a great job, and it doesn't repeat anything from 21 Jump Street except for the same characters going on a new adventure. That's the same of Lethal Weapon 2 or Beverly Hills Cop II or Die Hard with a Vengeance. It's a whole new movie starring John McClane. He's the same cop and it's still Die Hard, but it's just a great action movie. The trap that a lot of legacy sequels fall into is they're trying to do a Mad Libs of the original movie. 'We did that big fight scene, so what's our big fight scene this time?' And then you end up not really even remembering that you watched it. It's like it doesn't really exist. It feels like fan fiction because it's the same movie again with different people or the same people. I don't want to shit on them because I enjoy them and watch them as much as everybody else, but I can't tell you what happened in any of them. I'm racking my brain for one that did it right. Do you have one? would be one. There's some familiar story points from the films, and Stallone has a major role, but it's still well done. Creed is the perfect example. Ryan Coogler is a genius, and he made his own movie. So, in a similar way, I'm trying to Creed this movie. I love the siren opening in the first three Naked Gun movies just like everyone else loves it, but that doesn't mean I need to see it again. If I want to see it, I have three movies to watch. Ours would just be another one with different places. [Ira Newborn's] theme is my favorite music, but then it would just be that music again. You have three other movies to hear that music. I still do it at the end of the movie because I would feel like I hadn't quite seen Naked Gun if I didn't get to hear that music and see that siren, but that wasn't the version I was interested in making. And I did get a lot of pushback on that, I'll be honest. I was like, 'No, my opening credits are spoofing a genre.' That opening [that originated on Police Squad!] was spoofing M Squad, and I'm not doing a Lee Marvin 1950s TV show anymore. I have noir elements like Double Indemnity and In a Lonely Place and L.A. Confidential in there. It's all part of the DNA that makes Naked Gun, Naked Gun. But I was like, 'Our opening credits should feel like Terminator 2.' We're [spoofing] now, but anything from 1990 till now was also open season. That first movie was in 1988, so I figured that anything after that is for us to do now. [The following question/answer contains a spoiler.] Priscilla Presley returns to the franchise in a cameo. Was her appearance always a foregone conclusion? It was always something we wanted. But because we weren't shooting in L.A. and I didn't know where to put it, it was not something we accomplished until we came back to L.A. and did some shooting here. So I'm very happy she did it. It's huge for us. Well, I hope to see you in a couple years for your version of . (Note: Schaffer was sporting a hat throughout this interview.) Naked Gun 2½ 2? ? Is that the title? Maybe. I'm knocking on wood either way. (Scaffer also knocks on wood.) Yeah, I hope people will show up, but I'm very happy that the reception has been positive. I'm feeling relieved. ***The Naked Gun is now playing in movie theaters. Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 25 Best U.S. Film Schools in 2025 The 40 Greatest Needle Drops in Film History The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience Solve the daily Crossword
