From Manslaughter to Man’s Laughter: Naked Gun Is Back

It’s been a long time coming. After the loss of iconic comedic actor Leslie Nielsen, the return of the Naked Gun franchise has been anything but smooth. But that’s beginning to change. On Wednesday, Paramount Pictures released the first trailer for the Naked Gun: Reloaded, the first installment in the screwball spoof comedy series since 1994, set for August 1, 2025. Unlike those films, however, this one will not feature Nielsen. Instead, it’s Liam Neeson who will be playing the lead character as Frank Drebin’s son.

In the original Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, Nielsen played the simple-minded yet well-meaning Detective Frank Drebin. Set in 1988, the film was a spoof on the hard-boiled detective genre, with Nielsen’s character trying to stop an assassination attempt against Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to the United States. The film became a hit, spawning two sequels: 1991’s Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, in which Drebin foiled a kidnapping of one of the country’s top nuclear scientists, and 1994’s Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult, which saw him come out of retirement to try and stop a bomb plot during the Academy Awards ceremony.

While Drebin never made it out of the ‘90s, efforts to reboot the franchise began in earnest in 2013. Paramount announced that comedian Ed Helms would star in The Naked Gun as “Frank Drebin, no relation.” The project went nowhere, in part due to creative differences with producer and original Naked Gun director David Zucker. Zucker, who went on to direct the second and third Naked Guns, refused to take part in the reboot, stating to various media outlets that “the moment you consider redoing something, it’s inferior” to the originals. He was rumored to have briefly returned to the project in 2017 to write and rework a script where Drebin’s son was the real secret agent. That version never materialized either.

A fourth Naked Gun was announced in 2021, with Seth MacFarlane writing and directing without the involvement of Zucker. And while Helms dropped out of that production, Liam Neeson was added to the cast to play the role of Frank Drebin Jr., lieutenant at the NYPD and Drebin Sr’s son.

A New Crew for Old Laughs

Alongside Neeson in the reboot, Paul Walter Hauser will be playing Captain Ed Hocken, Jr., Drebin Sr’s former detective and friend, and the father of Ed’s son. Hauser is also set to play the Mole Man in the upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps. Pamela Anderson will be a femme fatale called Beth, whose brother has been murdered. The brother’s murder is the inciting incident for the film, and Drebin Jr. will be asked to solve the murder to help Beth, or risk having the Police Squad disbanded. Other cast members include Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, Liza Koshy, Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder, Busta Rhymes, and Eddy Yu.

The first teaser trailer, which was released back in April, was met with a lukewarm reception, with Zucker releasing a statement to TMZ regretting having even seen the trailer. “I can’t unsee it,” the filmmaker said. “I have a lot of love for the Naked Gun franchise. I wrote, produced, and directed the first two, so it’s sad to see how this film has been reported. It’s not a reboot, it’s a legacy sequel with Liam Neeson’s son of Frank Drebin. As a franchise fan, I wish people would hold off on judging based on a teaser trailer. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” He later addressed in the April post that “no one” from the old crew is involved in the movie except for Neeson.

In a lighter note, however, fans can see glimmers of hope in the trailer. For starters, it looks like Neeson is playing the screwball, intentionally throwing his trademark tough-guy “particular set of skills” character for a loop. At one point in the trailer, he says dramatically, “Once you kill a man for revenge, there’s no going back,” before yanking an attacker’s arms off his shoulders and using his arms as weapons. “A voice in your head saying over and over ‘That was awesome,’” he says dryly.

That same trailer also tugs at the heartstrings, with Frank and Ed Jr. both getting choked up at a wall of plaques commemorating their late fathers. The new trailer is also appropriately funny in the old tradition. The mystery of the murdered Beth’s brother, while not a major plot point, is the most grounded piece of the film, and it gives way to typically classic Naked Gun moments. We see a suspect claim that he served 20 years in prison for “man’s laughter.” After Drebin corrects the person to be “manslaughter,” he flatly replies, “Must have been quite the joke.”

Commandeering a bathroom in a coffee shop for “police business,” being deadpan and delivered with 100 percent seriousness while making up for total nonsense, and, of course, falling over are all key pieces of comedy that the first Naked Gun was known for. If Neeson can properly don that role in the upcoming installment, it might be just what a 2025 summer movie needs.

The jokes may not be for everyone; they are punny, slapstick, and absurd to a fault. But that’s kind of the point. That was the beauty of the originals, and as the trailer indicates, if it’s more of the same, The Naked Gun 2025 may just find the right formula to remind us all of the joys of a stupid movie on a lazy day.