Paramount wants Liam Neeson to bring his skills to a Naked Gun remake
Paramount is in talks with Neeson to star in a Naked Gun remake directed by Akiva Schaffer and produced by Seth MacFarlane
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Our endless reboot cycle has finally come for the comedies of Leslie Nielsen. No, they haven’t touched Airplane! just yet, but earlier today, Deadline reported that Paramount gave the go-ahead to Seth MacFarlane to produce a Naked Gun remake. Not a lot of good news in that sentence. However, the other two names in the report are on the money: Liam Neeson and Akiva Schafer.
Obviously, no one can replace Leslie Neilson. There is simply no better straight man for the whacky worlds that Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker created. He could make opening a door funny by playing it as seriously as a heart attack, and that’s due to his dramatic background. Prior to Airplane!, Nielsen was a dramatic actor appearing in Forbidden Planet and The Poseidon Adventure with a straight face. If MacFarlane wants to recreate the magic of Frank Drebin, an actor as dramatic as Neeson would be kind of perfect.
A star of action movies where he has to save his daughter from a gang of terrorists, Neeson has reformated himself over the last 20 years as an action star with a particular set of skills. His stern jaw, piercing eyes, and massive frame make him an intimidating figure, which is what makes it all the better when he does comedy.
Neeson went viral in the late 2000s with a scene on the Ricky Gervais-Stephen Merchant-Warwick Davis comedy Life’s Too Short. Attempting to prove his adeptness at different forms of comedy, Neeson forces some improvisation on Gervais, Merchant, and Davis while refusing to go along with the reality of the scene and forcing intensity to where laughs should be. Life Too Short never lives up to how good the scene is, and it’s because Neeson’s deadpan is so consistent. He creates a heavy atmosphere but not one that weighs down the humor. Neeson doesn’t give the joke away. He commits totally to the humorless man who yearns for laughs.
Akiva Schafer is a much more straight-ahead pick for the director. As a member of the Lonely Island, he’s directed some of the best and silliest comedies of the last 20 years, including Hot Rod and Popstar. Earlier this year, he directed Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, which everyone who saw it agreed was way better than it needed to be. Schaffer also wrote the screenplay for Naked Gun with Chip ’n Dale writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand.
Deadline says Neeson is still in talks for the movie, but if that’s the direction they’re going in, dare we say, we’re cautiously optimistic.
39 Comments
Just because the name Liam Neeson kinda sounds like the name Leslie Neilsen does not make this a good idea at all.
No, but they offer other compelling evidence in the article.
You’re going to hear this a lot, but that scene in Life’s Too Short is one of the best comedic bits of all time. I actually remember where I was the first time I saw it, that’s how good it is. That show never had a chance after it started out that high.Doesn’t mean this is a good idea. Just use Andy Samberg, he’s right there.
That’s just bad comedy taste
Andy Samberg should be used as nothing except as a warning for what not to do.
I’d really like to know your reasoning for thinking Andy Samberg is a better choice than Liam Neeson. I don’t think Neeson is a great choice, but Samberg seems completely wrong for the part. The role needs a certain gravitas, and has to be played completely straight. I could see Neeson attempting this, but I don’t think it’s even in Samberg’s wheelhouse.
Wasn’t there supposed to be one with Ed Helms a few years ago?Anywho, we already got a decent Naked Gun/Police Squad remake called “Angie Tribecca.”
As a TV show, it was the modern Police Squad. So logically that’s who should have gone on to make the movie.
There was, at one point, talk of a remake with Helms in the starring role.
Oh yeah! I totally forgot about that show…
Good thing OJ Simpson is still around to reprise his original role!
He was really great/funny in Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives as a pathetic oaf.
As long as they keep the joke that was supposed to be in the Ed Helms version:“The name’s Drebin… Frank Drebin. No relation.”I don’t know why, but it’s such a Naked Gun joke that it makes me laugh thinking about how Neilsen would have delivered it.
Jesus, no. Not because it’s a bad idea (but also because of that), but because any road that opens up even the slimmest possible chance of anybody with any pull in the industry, even tangentially, thinking “Hmm, what are Friedberg & Seltzer up to?” is a road that must be avoided at any cost.
I was just thinking about this last week. Not THIS specific remake (I didn’t even know it was in the works) but more in the abstract sense, and who I feel would play Leslie Nielsen’s role, and I came up with Andre Braugher. He’s funny and has very excellent dead pan comedic timing.
Someone on one of the new Fletch articles suggested Jon Hamm for Drebin and since then it’s all I’ve wanted.
Actually – that could just work. But I’m still thinking the Drebin role is too established as being Leslie Nielsen for this to work. It would be like Steve Martin as Clouseau.
whacky worlds —> wacky worldsreformated himself —> reformatted himselfforcing intensity to where —> forcing intensity whereLife Too Short —> Life’s Too Shortwhich everyone who saw it agreed —> Jesus H. Christdare we say, we’re cautiously optimistic —> dare we say we’re cautiously optimistic
I’m calling it right now, VP is Matt Schimkowitz. SWERVE!
Akiva Schafer is a much more straight-ahead pick for the director.
*Schaffer
Leslie Neilson
If you’re going to commit to such an obnoxious gimmick, at least be a thorough pedant.
to be fair, i saw a similar article on another site that consistently called the character ‘frank derbin.’
How is it obnoxious? What’s obnoxious is that there are such blatant errors at all
Yuck. No thanks
God, they thought about doing this with Ed Helms? Nobody ever asked for an unnecessary musical number in a Naked Gun movie.And Liam Neeson? He can go be dramatic action man if he wants. But leave Naked Gun alone! Leave it alone!
And if you don’t see this movie, Liam will find you and he will kill you.
What exactly IS The Naked Gun if it hasn’t got Nielsen or ZAZ? Isn’t that just another “funny cop movie”?
Name recognition, so easy marketing.
His cameo in Derry Girls is fantastic, but still…no.
How about he plays that same cop, but just on exchange to the US?
I think we need a spin-off following the exploits of the Jewish feller in Ballymena.Lovely feller.
Yeah, the only re-boot I’m accepting is if Frank Drebin is played by an obese straight woman of color who identifies as a non-binary lesbian Eskimo [sic] and slaps people around for getting her ever-changing pronouns wrong as a running joke.
‘’How is my ex-husband?’’
‘’Well, you took all his money, his house, his dog, his freedom due to the false rape allegation and even the shirt off his back, so he hanged himself buck naked a few weeks ago using prison sheets.’’
‘’Yes, everywhere I go, something reminds me of him.’’
(site of garbage dump)
‘’Drebin, I want no trouble like you had last year on the South Side. Understand? That’s my policy.’’
‘’Well, when I see weirdos dressed in white tonguing and groping an unconscious woman on the street in full view of 100 people, I shoot the bastards. That’s my policy.’’
‘’They were giving the woman CPR, you moron! You killed two doctors! Good ones.’’
‘’Wilma, I promise you; whatever disgusting scumbag did this to you, not one person on this force will rest until they are behind bars. Unless they are a woman, of course, in which case she must have had her reasons.”
I’m kind of sold because of the way Neeson says “we’re closed” in that improv clip above. So funny
Anything to get him out of the “retired badass rescuing daughter / pulled back in for one last job” rut he seems to be stuck in.
I wonder if this is his attempt to finally break away from action movies now that he’s SEVENTY YEARS OLD! He doesn’t want to end up lurching around on screen “running” like what Harrison Ford has been doing for a while now.
Honestly, Leslie Nielsen played the role so perfectly that it would be hard to replicate that. Any attempt to recreate it would result in unfavorable comparisons and while I am sure there are ways to take the concept in a new direction, I can’t think of it now (before the coffee has kicked in).
Sure, they can try. Neeson’s getting up there but I know he can do the comedy. They just need to give it it’s own new story and not remake one of the original films. But they can’t get away with a lot of the jokes and gags now because of the times a changin’. And how about Marshawn Lynch as Nordberg?
How much brand power does Naked Gun have these days? I could be entirely wrong but I feel like Hollywood greatly overvalues the value of bygone franchises. I think most people who recognize the name will bemoan that there is yet another remake coming out and / or that they’re doing a movie without Nielsen. And those who don’t won’t care much either way.Why not just give this an original title and call it a homage. You can then build the movie off of Neeson’s strengths (or whoever is cast) and avoid comparisons to Nielsen and the original movies. It’s not like slapping the name of an old show or movie means guaranteed success – there are plenty of examples of high-profile failures, even when the movie was actually pretty good like The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
As long as David Zucker is nowhere near this production, it could be pretty great.