The “Naked Gun 4” That Almost Happened

Paramount Pictures released its reboot of “The Naked Gun” in cinemas last summer, the $42 million budgeted film ultimately grossing $102 million, along with being a subsequent streaming hit on Amazon.

One person who wasn’t involved was David Zucker, the man who co-wrote the original trilogy and directed the first two. He made headlines a few years ago when he spoke about how many of the comedies he made couldn’t be done today.

He said at the time: ” We went where the laughs were. We never thought that we were offending anyone, but if we were offending people we knew we were on the right track.” He also revealed he and his writing partner Pat Proft “wrote a parody of James Bond and Mission: Impossible”.

Turns out that project was actually a failed attempt at a fourth “The Naked Gun” entry prior to the Liam Neeson-led reboot last year.

Speaking with Screen Rant recently, ahead of an appearance at the Netflix is a Joke festival where he’ll do a Q&A about the original 1988 film, he explains that Pat Proft and Mike McManus wrote a script for a “Naked Gun 4” film – which would’ve been a minor reboot albeit in the same continuity – but the studio “didn’t want to use it”.

They then “hired somebody else, and it turned out to be less than great”. He says the idea of an elderly cop was a “fresh idea 40 years ago,” which is why their version would’ve followed the thirtysomething son of Frank Drebin in the “world of international spy thrillers”. He still hopes to make it someday:

“If you’re a hack, all you can do is just copy it and try to replace Leslie Nielsen, which is impossible. You can’t replace Leslie. And I wouldn’t want to. Liam is a fine actor, but the idea was just so stale that all they could do, they couldn’t hope to do the same as the originals. But I’m excited about this. We’re still going to use our original script that would’ve been the one Paramount rejected, and we’re calling it Counterintelijence, spelled with one L and a J. It’s a great, great script, which we’ll do someday.”

If it does come back, it’s unlikely to be as a new “The Naked Gun” entry unless the studio “fire[s] all the moron executives that they had that did” last year’s one before adding that “I’ll try not to appear as bitter” when he does his appearance at the Netflix event.