David Zucker, who directed the first two “Naked Gun” films, recently told “Woman’s World” that he was unimpressed with the Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson-led reboot. He said the film “totally missed” the now-classic spoof comedy style pioneered by Zucker, his brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams.
“My brother, Jerry, and our partner, Jim Abrahams, started doing spoof comedies 50 years ago, and we created our own style – and we did it so well that it obviously seems easy,” Zucker explained. “People started copying it, like Seth MacFarlane for the new ‘Naked Gun.’ He totally missed it.
MacFarlane was a lead producer on the project and contributed “additional literary material,” according to IMDb. Lonely Island co-founder Akiva Schaffer directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand.
Zucker also took issue with the production costs of 2025’s “Naked Gun.” The reboot cost $42 million, while Zucker’s 1988 original cost $14.5 million, according to the AFI. However, when adjusted for inflation, $14.5 million comes to about $38 million in 2025, which is not far from the budget of the new “Naked Gun.”
“You shouldn’t spend too much money on comedies, and one of our rules is about technical pizzazz,” Zucker said. “Big budgets and comedy are polar opposites, and in the new ‘Naked Gun,’ you could see they were spending a lot of money on scenes full of technical pizzazz while trying to copy our style.”
The “Airplane!” » The director added that he believed the new “Naked Gun” was made exclusively for financial reasons. Zucker claimed, “Everyone is in it for the money now, and that seems to be the only reason they wanted to make a new ‘Naked Gun.’
