The Naked Gun: Liam Neeson says he’s had talks of starring in reboot

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! remains a comedy classic almost entirely due to the deadpan brilliance of Leslie Nielsen, so it's hard to imagine anyone else following in his footsteps. Hollywood has been attempting to reboot the franchise for a number of years, with Ed Helms (The Office) once slated to play Detective Frank Drebin, but much like a tragic blimp accident, they don't seem to get too far off the ground.

While speaking to People about his upcoming retirement from action movies, Liam Neeson dropped a brief tidbit about his possible future in comedy, saying that he's "been approached by Seth MacFarlane and Paramount Studios to maybe resurrect the Naked Gun films," which prompted Neeson to joke that such a move will "either finish my career or bring it in another direction. I honestly don't know." Neeson has worked with MacFarlane on several occasions such as A Million Ways to Die in the West, Ted 2, Family Guy, and The Orville, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that they might take their working relationship to the next level; in fact, MacFarlane once stated that he'd love to do a Naked Gun-type film with the actor.

Generally with dramatic actors they do kinda like the idea of coming in and doing a comedy to show they can do comedy. Liam is great with comedy. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen his Ricky Gervais sketch? Liam is awesome. My dream at some point would be to do an entire movie with Liam where he does a Leslie Nielson Naked Gun kinda thing. Because he’s so good at playing against the comedy and therefore he’s hilarious. He just really knows what he’s doing.

As far as the reboot of The Naked Gun goes, I'd say that there's maybe a 50/50 chance of it actually happening, though there's only a 10% chance of that. In all seriousness, it's the type of role that Liam Neeson might actually pull off successfully, especially if he's allowed to put his own tough-guy spin on the character. However when to comes to comedy films and reboots, they don't often mix; It's like eating a spoonful of Drano, sure, it'll clean you out, but it'll leave you hollow inside. I'll see myself out.