Liam Neeson recently announced his plans to retire from action movies within the next couple of years, so People asked him where his career could go after he leaves the genre behind. Apparently, a switch to comedy could be on the horizon, as the Taken actor confirmed that he’s been approached by Paramount Pictures and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane about starring in a Naked Gun reboot.
Neeson said, “I’ve been approached by Seth MacFarlane and Paramount Studios to maybe resurrect The Naked Gun films,” 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 on A Million Ways to Die in the West, in which he played the bad guy, and Ted 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 was recently attached to reboot two other franchises – Revenge of the Nerds and Smokey and the Bandit – and he’s currently starring in three TV shows.
Outside of his collaborations with MacFarlane, Neeson doesn’t have much experience in comedy (unless Love, Actually counts). He made a cameo appearance as an absurd version of himself in the Gervais/Merchant mockumentary series Life’s Too Short, where the joke was that he was a serious actor who wanted 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 a Naked Gun reboot has floated around Hollywood. In 2013, a reboot went into development that would star Ed Helms as 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 for a fourth Naked Gun movie that would revolve around the son of Frank Drebin, but that also fell through. It’s unclear if the potential Neeson-starring Naked Gun reboot 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-lived Police Squad! series, The Naked Gun movies starred Leslie Nielsen as bumbling detective Frank Drebin. Those movies were anchored 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.
Source: People