David Zuck­er con­firms a Naked Gun reboot is in the works

Ready to reopen the files of Police Squad? You may be in luck. Twen­ty-four years have passed since Leslie Nielsen’s last out­ing as Lt Frank Drebin, in 1994’s The Naked Gun 33 ¹⁄₃: The Final Insult, which sure­ly that means this prat­fall-prone cop is long over­due a revival?

Direc­tor and series co-cre­ator David Zuck­er thinks so… ​“We’re doing a fourth one now,” he reveals ahead of the 30^th anniver­sary of the franchise’s 1988 debut. ​“So many years have passed since the last Naked Gun, but I think that sense of humour is very much still alive. Peo­ple still laugh at these kind of slap­stick jokes and char­ac­ters tak­ing it all seri­ous­ly. It just hasn’t been done in 10 years.”

Sounds intrigu­ing – but how does the Air­plane! direc­tor plan to reboot The Naked Gun with­out its lead­ing man lynch­pin, Nielsen, who passed away back in 2010? Zuck­er has an answer for that one too. ​“Now it’s the son of Frank Drebin. There’s an evil Russ­ian crime lord who killed Frank Drebin and swore to kill every Drebin he could find in the phone book so he and his moth­er Jane (Priscil­la Pres­ley) are in wit­ness protection.”

Zuck­er con­tin­ues, ​“Drebin’s son is recruit­ed by the CIA to be a decoy and try to take down the Russ­ian crime lord. He flies to Europe and it becomes a spoof on The Bourne Iden­ti­ty, Mis­sion: Impos­si­ble and James Bond.”

Accord­ing to Zuck­er, pre-pro­duc­tion for this as-yet-unti­tled fourth instal­ment is cur­rent­ly under­way, with series co-writer and Police Acad­e­my mas­ter­mind Pat Proft on script duties. ​“I’m writ­ing with Pat and anoth­er writer named Mike McManus. Para­mount love the first draft and have asked for a sec­ond, so we’re work­ing on it,” says Zucker.

As for who might be faced with the daunt­ing task of step­ping into Frank Drebin Sr’s gumshoes? Noth­ing is con­firmed, but Zuck­er has a few ideas. ​“We have the advan­tage of being able to get a come­di­an this time. It doesn’t have to be anoth­er straight man actor like Leslie,” he explains. ​“We were think­ing of per­haps Bill Had­er. I think he’s mar­vel­lous. He’s able to be a lead­ing man and a come­di­an at the same time so he’s one pos­si­bil­i­ty. It can def­i­nite­ly work again.”