Sergeant Frank Drebin, detective lieutenant of Police Squad, will be hitting the streets again next year.
Paramount has announced that their long-in-development reboot of the Naked Gun spoof films has been scheduled for a July 28, 2025 release. The currently untitled film will star Liam Neeson, taking over the role of Frank Trebin from the late Leslie Nielsen. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping director Akiva Schaffer will helm the film with Seth MacFarlane listed as a producer.
The original Naked Gun trilogy of films were spun off of the short-lived TV series Police Squad. Running for only six episodes in the spring of 1982, the series was a broad parody of police dramas, using the Lee Marvin-starring series M Squad (1957 – 1960) as a basis, from the writers/directors of the hit comedy Airplane!, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (aka ZAZ). While the network wanted a TV series in the tradition of Airplane!, they cancelled it with the odd note that viewers had to actually pay attention to the show in order to get the jokes. The series would get a cult following primarily through its release on home video, leading to Paramount taking a chance on a film version. It was a gamble that paid off at the box office, with the first film making $152 million against its budget of $12 million.
For those thinking that the often intense Neeson is a strange pick, it should be remembered that original Naked Gun star Nielsen had a long history of playing straight leading men roles. It was a resume that actually helped when ZAZ cast him against type for 1980’s Airplane!. Neeson has also shown an ability to play off of his own tough-guy screen persona. In MacFarlane’s Ted 2, he turned in a hilarious cameo as a very intense grocery store shopper concerned if he could still buy a box of Trix cereal, even though they are advertised as being “for kids.”
