Liam Neeson recently announced his plans to retire from action movies within the next couple of years, soPeopleasked himwhere his career could goafter he leaves the genre behind. Apparently, a switch to comedy could be on the horizon, as theTakenactor confirmed that he’s been approached by Paramount Pictures andFamily Guycreator Seth MacFarlane about starring in aNaked Gunreboot.
Neeson said, “I’ve been approached by Seth MacFarlane and Paramount Studios to maybe resurrectThe Naked Gunfilms,” and joked, “It’ll either finish my career or bring it in another direction. I honestly don’t know.” The actor previously collaborated with MacFarlane onA Million Ways to Die in the West, in which he played the bad guy, andTed 2, in which he cameoed as a grocery store customer who was gravely concerned about being followed home after buying a box of Trix. MacFarlane wasrecently attached to reboot two other franchises–Revenge of the NerdsandSmokey and the Bandit– and he’s currently starring in three TV shows.
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Outside of his collaborations with MacFarlane, Neeson doesn’t have much experience in comedy (unlessLove, Actuallycounts). He made a cameo appearance as an absurd version of himself in the Gervais/Merchant mockumentary seriesLife’s Too Short, where the joke was that he was a serious actor whowanted to transition into comedy, despite it being obvious that he didn’t have the required skillset. Ironically, he nailed that comedic appearance, so maybe that’s not true.
This isn’t the first time that the possibility of aNaked Gunreboot has floated around Hollywood. In 2013, a reboot went into development thatwould star Ed Helmsas Frank Drebin and update the movies’ parody style for the modern day, but it eventually fell through. In 2017, original writers David Zucker and Pat Proft began working on a script fora fourthNaked Gunmoviethat would revolve around the son of Frank Drebin, but that also fell through. It’s unclear if the potential Neeson-starringNaked Gunreboot would tie into the continuity of the earlier movies or completely reboot the franchise, or if Neeson would play the original trilogy’s inept hero Frank Drebin or a new character.
Adapted from the tragically short-livedPolice Squad!series,The Naked Gunmovies starred Leslie Nielsen as bumbling detective Frank Drebin. Those movies wereanchored by Nielsen’s hysterical performance, so rebooting the franchise without him would be a huge gamble. But with a strong enough script, maintaining the rapid-fire joke rate of the original trilogy (without just rehashing all the most memorable gags from the old movies), it could work.
