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Writer-director Akiva Schaffer initially thought a reboot of The Naked Gun was blasphemous until he realized the full potential of having Liam Neeson step into the shoes of Leslie Nielsen.

In 2021, producer Seth MacFarlane was tasked with reinventing ZAZ’s (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker) beloved spoof comedy franchise after three decades and a few failed revivals along the way. The Family Guy creator’s first order of business was to attach Neeson, whom he’d worked with on A Million Ways to Die in the West and Ted 2. 

From there, MacFarlane’s president at Fuzzy Door Productions, Erica Huggins, handled the director search, which quickly led her to Schaffer, due to the warm reception he’d just received for Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022). Of course, she was also a fan of his 2016 cult hit, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, as well as his longtime comedy trio, The Lonely Island, consisting of childhood friends Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone.

Schaffer’s commitment didn’t come automatically. He insisted on a page-one rewrite of a script that a couple Family Guy writers had written. Even MacFarlane himself has referred to that iteration as too much of a “cover band version” of 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! Schaffer also wanted his Rescue Rangers writers, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, to help him pen a new take, one that didn’t overly play the hits of the original Naked Gun trilogy, such as the cherished opening credits featuring composer Ira Newborn’s Naked Gun and Police Squad! theme. The compromise was to place it in the closing credits.

“I love the siren opening in the first three Naked Gun movies just like everyone else loves it, but that doesn’t mean I need to see it again. And I did get a lot of pushback on that, I’ll be honest,” Schaffer tells The Hollywood Reporter. “That opening was spoofing M Squad, and I’m not [spoofing] a Lee Marvin 1950s TV show anymore. I was like, ‘Our opening credits should feel like Terminator 2.’ We’re [spoofing] now, but anything from 1990 till now was also open season.”

When Schaffer informed his friends that he was tackling a new Naked Gun, the first question everyone asked involved the manner in which he would handle O.J. Simpson’s Naked Gun character, Nordberg. Thus, during the first week of writing, Schaffer and co. wrote the “Hall of Legends” scene that was prominently featured in the film’s first teaser. Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. and Paul Walter Hauser’s Ed Hocken Jr. pay tribute to framed photos of Nielsen’s Drebin Sr. and George Kennedy’s Hocken Sr., before cutting wide to reveal a total of ten cops giving tearful salutes to their late parents.

Then the camera transitions to a framed portrait of Simpson’s Nordberg, prompting Moses Jones’ Nordberg Jr. to break the fourth wall, shake his head and not deliver his own sentimental moment. The joke took the internet by storm, and anytime the teaser or trailer played at movie theaters, the moment always set off a big reaction. But to his credit, Schaffer never strummed that chord again due to the controversy that continues to swirl around a figure as notorious as the late Simpson.

“To be honest, we never wrote another O.J. joke. We just went, ‘Yep, that takes care of that,’” Schaffer says. “I didn’t know that the joke would kill as hard as it did at our first test screening. If I had known that, then maybe I would’ve written other jokes. But you want to be respectful of everything that revolves around him, so it’s not something I really took glee in. We just had to acknowledge it in a way we thought was not dancing on anybody’s misfortunes.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Schaffer also discusses how Neeson and Pamela Anderson ended up being paired together in the now critically acclaimed reboot, as well as the currently fragile state of the studio comedy.

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A fourth Naked Gun installment has gone through quite the development journey the last 16 years. Once you joined in the fall of 2022 for this iteration, what was the key to finally getting it up and running?

Well, Liam had already been attached for quite some time. I remember reading about it at some point and being a little jealous. I was like, “Ooh, that’s a good idea.” So when I got the incoming call, the Liam part of it definitely piqued my interest. But if it was just, “Hey, what’s your take on a new Naked Gun?” I would’ve been like, “Of course not. The first Naked Gun is so good, and there’s no room to make it better. You can only do different.” But the Liam part was like, “Ooh, I see my version of it at least,” which is now what’s in theaters.

But despite Liam’s involvement, the project still hadn’t moved forward, so how did you get the ball rolling?

They had an existing script, but I don’t think they were trying to make that version of it. I read that script, and no offense to it, but it was not the version I would want to make. So the meeting was more of a meeting where I went, “Hey, if this is going to be me, I’m super excited, but I would start from scratch. This is my version of the movie …” I then laid out, not the story or anything, but the styles of jokes and how I would want it to feel, look and sound.

Once they bought into that and thought it was a good idea, then I was like, “Oh, I need writers to do it with me. I don’t think anyone can write this kind of movie alone.” I’d just had a really good experience with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand on Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers. So I asked the studio first if it would be cool, and when they said yes, I went to them and said, “I have a motivated studio that says we have Liam Neeson wanting to do a Naked Gun. We just don’t have a movie. It’s so rare that we don’t have to talk them into anything. They want to do it, but what they don’t have is a director and a script. If we treat this seriously, I think we could get it made. I’m going to be a third of your writing team, though.”

So we joined forces, and we treated it like a green-lit movie or a TV show. We went into my office Monday through Friday and worked on it as if we were filming it no matter what. That’s how you keep momentum going on a movie like this. If we had just done development, we’d still be writing it, but we just treated it like we had to make it. 

This would’ve been long before your tenure, but is it true that there was once a version where Andy Samberg was supposed to play Frank Drebin’s 30-something son?

If there was, it was news to him. He saw the same press you’re referring to and he went, “What!?”

The precarious state of the theatrical comedy has been widely discussed the last few years, and your marketing had some fun with it as well. IndieWire went as far to say that The Naked Gun, in terms of its genre, is this summer’s most important movie. Have you tried to ignore this notion that the next five years of the studio comedy might be determined by your movie?

Yes, and I liked reading that article. It’s a fun article to write, and it’s a fun thing to talk about. But journalists like you who do this for a living and have a bird’s-eye view of the industry are better equipped to talk about the real ebbs and flows and why comedy is at such a place, theatrically, and what the hopes are.

Overall, I almost equate it to one of those fake stories, like, “Can female-led movies be box office smashes?” I’m sure they told that story around the release of 9 to 5 [in 1980], and then they were like, “I guess women-led movies can make money.” [Note: 9 to 5 grossed over $100 million against $10 million, which was largely unheard of in 1980.] And when Bridesmaids became the best comedy of the last 20 years, they were like, “Whoa!” Then there’s Girls Trip and Barbie.

It’s the same story over and over. If it’s a fantastic movie, then any movie can be a [box-office hit]. So I really hope The Naked Gun works, but if it works, I don’t necessarily know what it changes.

Whoever had the idea to pair Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson must be patting themself on the back right now. 

(Schaffer smiles.)

They’re truly great together in the film. I know Liam was the top choice from day one, but how did Pam enter the mix months before The Last Showgirl’s release?

We wrote the entire script not knowing who anybody else would be besides Liam. And when it came time for casting, the question of Beth, our femme fatale, was a really difficult one. Spoof is not an easy skill. You could be an Oscar-winning actor, and you could be terrible at spoof. You can also be an Oscar-nominated actor like Liam Neeson and be wonderful at it. I’m just saying that it’s not the norm. You’re not judging by the same metrics. The actor has to be able to play something so stupid in a way where it seems like they don’t know they’re telling a joke. 

[Naked Gun creators] The Zuckers have said it better, and I always end up paraphrasing and saying it wrong, but you don’t play it straight. You don’t play it stiff. You play it real. If your character is happy, you’re smiling. If your character is sad, you’re sad. You’re not playing it overly serious; you’re just playing the scenes. You don’t know that what you’re saying are jokes or are supposed to be funny. But that’s really hard to do. Most actors will telegraph the joke a bit and know they’re being funny.

But Pam has the thing that Priscilla Presley had. She can say the UCLA joke with a little twinkle in her eye, and you really believe the character is playing at the height of her intelligence. The character has no clue that what she’s saying is not the right thing to say. So we just got lucky that she wanted to do it and was so right for it. At certain points, Beth was almost a bunch of other people until we realized Pam was there and could do it.

According to the internet, Pam said no to Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). Did you ever ask her if this was true?

I only learned that in the last couple of weeks, and I’ve seen some interviews of her being asked that. She was like, “I think that’s blown out [of proportion]. It just came across my desk at some point, and I couldn’t do it for various reasons. I don’t know that they were offering it to me.” Now I’m paraphrasing her interview that I saw, but I don’t think it was exact.

She was in Scary Movie 3, which was honestly a hit against her in my mind. I wanted everybody to be such a surprise, but I love that she’s the encapsulation of this movie in terms of her life. She seems like somebody that would’ve been in one of the ‘90s movies, and that’s so nice because it gives authenticity to the vibe. She’s also in this amazing second act of her career that is totally new and completely different. It’s just like what Liam’s Frank Jr. says [to Frank Sr.’s picture] in the beginning of the movie: “I want to be just like you, but at the same time, be completely different and original.” She embodies that trajectory.

There’s a couple of Mission: Impossible jokes, such as the little girl disguise that Liam’s character wears at the start. You’ve also got three layers of what Mission filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie calls “mousetraps.” They’re staged environments that are meant to force a confession. 

I wish I had known what to call them.

You’ve even got former Mission composer Lorne Balfe scoring the film like it’s a Mission movie in certain places. There’s also some Dark Knight-sounding score in the opening bank robbery …

And Jerry Goldsmith vibes throughout.

Overall, did Paramount encourage this type of franchise synergy?

No, but they didn’t discourage it. I am such a huge fan of all the Mission: Impossible movies, but specifically Fallout, which has that hospital mousetrap. Fallout is just one of the best globetrotting spy thrillers or action-spy films. It might be the best one of all time — that and Casino Royale, if you even consider them the same genre. It seems like they are. So I would say those are the two best ever made, and [our spoofs] were definitely made with love. 

But those mousetraps are hilarious because if you suspend disbelief for one second, the IMF is essentially those three guys [Ethan, Benji, Luther] and whoever else is along for the ride. They are usually operating rogue and under some sort of pressure. And somehow, they can still build a completely functioning hospital set with lighting and hinged walls for dramatic reveals. There are so many cinematic choices that are so perfect for [The Naked Gun], and being my favorite movie, [spoofing it] was just perfect on every level.

The O.J. Simpson/Nordberg joke that was featured in the first teaser really struck a chord, and while you could’ve gone back to that well many times, did you and your co-writers decide that one showstopping joke was enough?

We didn’t get pushback or anything. On the edgy jokes, people would go, “Ooh, I don’t know.” And I’d be like, “Don’t worry. The movie is going to be 85 minutes. A fourth of the script is getting cut. Anything that doesn’t work is going to be cut.” So that’s the way I made everyone relax all the time. [Writer’s Note: The 85-minute runtime was meant to mirror the first two Naked Gun movies’ 85-minute runtimes. The third film is 82 minutes.]

When I first told friends, “Hey, I’m actually about to write a Naked Gun,” they’d go, “What are you going to do about O.J?” So, right away, I was like, “Oh, right. That’s the elephant in the room that has to be addressed.” The Hall of Legends scene that was in the teaser then answers everything. Is Frank going to be Frank Sr.? Is he going to be replacing Leslie Nielsen and trying to be Leslie Nielsen? No, he’s going to be Frank Jr., and it’s Liam. He’s going to lean into what he’s known for. How’s it going to look? What’s the music going to be like? It’s all right there, and it was all stuff that was written in the first week as we were asking ourselves those questions.

To be honest, we never wrote another O.J. joke. We just went, “Yep, that takes care of that.” That’s all it ever was. I didn’t know that the joke would kill as hard as it did at our first test screening, and I was like, “Oh, it’s really good. This audience loves it.” If I had known that, then maybe I would’ve written other jokes. I don’t know. But it already felt like it was pushing. You want to be respectful of everything that revolves around him, so it’s not something I really took glee in. We just had to acknowledge it in a way we thought was not dancing on anybody’s misfortunes.

Legacy sequels often go for low-hanging fruit, and I respect that you never referenced Enrico Pallazzo or created another “nothing to see here” gag. In general, what was your philosophy regarding callbacks and references to the original trilogy?

As a viewer, I just don’t get a lot out of [legacy sequels]. There’s a lot of great sequels out there, not legacy sequels, like 22 Jump Street. They did a great job, and it doesn’t repeat anything from 21 Jump Street except for the same characters going on a new adventure. That’s the same of Lethal Weapon 2 or Beverly Hills Cop II or Die Hard with a Vengeance. It’s a whole new movie starring John McClane. He’s the same cop and it’s still Die Hard, but it’s just a great action movie. 

The trap that a lot of legacy sequels fall into is they’re trying to do a Mad Libs of the original movie. “We did that big fight scene, so what’s our big fight scene this time?” And then you end up not really even remembering that you watched it. It’s like it doesn’t really exist. It feels like fan fiction because it’s the same movie again with different people or the same people. I don’t want to shit on them because I enjoy them and watch them as much as everybody else, but I can’t tell you what happened in any of them. I’m racking my brain for one that did it right. Do you have one?

Creed would be one. There’s some familiar story points from the Rocky films, and Stallone has a major role, but it’s still well done.

Creed is the perfect example. Ryan Coogler is a genius, and he made his own movie. So, in a similar way, I’m trying to Creed this movie.

I love the siren opening in the first three Naked Gun movies just like everyone else loves it, but that doesn’t mean I need to see it again. If I want to see it, I have three movies to watch. Ours would just be another one with different places. [Ira Newborn’s] theme is my favorite music, but then it would just be that music again. You have three other movies to hear that music. I still do it at the end of the movie because I would feel like I hadn’t quite seen Naked Gun if I didn’t get to hear that music and see that siren, but that wasn’t the version I was interested in making. And I did get a lot of pushback on that, I’ll be honest. I was like, “No, my opening credits are spoofing a genre.” 

That opening [that originated on Police Squad!] was spoofing M Squad, and I’m not doing a Lee Marvin 1950s TV show anymore. I have noir elements like Double Indemnity and In a Lonely Place and L.A. Confidential in there. It’s all part of the DNA that makes Naked Gun, Naked Gun. But I was like, “Our opening credits should feel like Terminator 2.” We’re [spoofing] now, but anything from 1990 till now was also open season. That first movie was in 1988, so I figured that anything after that is for us to do now.

[The following question/answer contains a spoiler.] Priscilla Presley returns to the franchise in a cameo. Was her appearance always a foregone conclusion?

It was always something we wanted. But because we weren’t shooting in L.A. and I didn’t know where to put it, it was not something we accomplished until we came back to L.A. and did some shooting here. So I’m very happy she did it. It’s huge for us.

Well, I hope to see you in a couple years for your version of The Naked Gun 2½. (Note: Schaffer was sporting a Naked Gun 2½ hat throughout this interview.)

Naked Gun 2½ 2?

Naked Gun 2½ x 2?

Is that the title? 

Maybe. I’m knocking on wood either way. 

(Scaffer also knocks on wood.) Yeah, I hope people will show up, but I’m very happy that the reception has been positive. I’m feeling relieved. 

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The Naked Gun is now playing in movie theaters.