Neeson Spoofs Himself in Hilarious Naked Gun Trailer

One of the all-time great spoof comedies is back. Long may it continue to blow raspberries at taste and dignity in the upcoming Naked Gun 2025. Set to release August 1, 2025, the film follows retired (or at least fired) detective Frank Drebin as he tries to stop a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II during her state visit to the United States. Frank Drebin, as fans of the original 1988 Police Squad! Will know, is none other than Leslie Nielsen, the deadpan star of classic comedies such as Airplane! and Cabin Fever. Drebin was a bumbling, accident-prone cop, but he was also well-intentioned, always making sure to clean up his crime-fighting messes. The first Naked Gun was an instant cult classic and made Nielsen one of the most in-demand actors of the 1980s and 1990s, with two sequels following: Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear in 1991 and Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult in 1994.

Although fans of The Naked Gun series called for a reboot or continuation in the decades after, it was not until 2021 that a third film was greenlit, and not with Nielsen in the lead role. Instead, it will be up to Liam Neeson to continue the Drebin legacy, and the film will be billed as a “legacy sequel” with Neeson playing Frank Drebin’s son in the same police capacity.

Rethinking the Reboot: How We Got to Naked Gun 2025

Paramount originally tried to reboot the franchise in 2013, casting The Office actor Ed Helms as a “Frank Drebin, no relation.” After getting as far as producing a script, they failed to gain the necessary traction to begin production, and the rights were reverted. A major factor in this failure was the refusal of the original series producer and director of the first two films, David Zucker, to get involved. He did so on the basis that any reboot would be “inferior to the original. Anybody who did it would know that.” Zucker, who had only intended to help write the first two films, went back to working with the franchise in 2017 to rework a film in which Drebin’s son was a secret agent with close ties to international intelligence.

Production continued to be far from a straightforward affair, but this time the projects were continued without Zucker’s involvement, and Seth MacFarlane was brought on to direct. This is when Liam Neeson joined the reboot, cast as Frank Drebin Jr., a Lieutenant in the police force of the city of Metroburg, which Drebin Sr. had served for decades.

A New Spin (and Cast) on an Old Classic

As the son of the original Frank Drebin, Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. will be the first to inherit his father’s old job. Also joining him as returning characters to the series is Paul Walter Hauser, cast as Captain Ed Hocken Jr., the son of Drebin Sr.’s long-term police partner Ed Hocken. You may recognize Hauser for his upcoming role as Mole Man in Fantastic Four: First Steps. Neeson and Hauser are joined in the cast by Pamela Anderson as Beth, a femme fatale whose brother has been murdered and who turns to Frank Jr. for help, and a long list of other great actors, including Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, Liza Koshy, Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder, Busta Rhymes, and Eddy Yu.

The first teaser for Naked Gun 2025 was released in April and has since been met with mixed reactions. Zucker commented on the release of the first teaser for the film to TMZ in April, saying that he “watched it” but “regretted that I watched it and I can’t unsee it.” However, there is some good news for Naked Gun fans. Neeson has fully committed to the screwball nature of the parody franchise in a clever callback to the stoic “particular set of skills” of his Taken character. In one scene, he exclaims, “Once you kill a man for revenge, there’s no going back” before tearing off the arms of his attacker and using them to beat him. “A voice in your head saying over and over ‘That was awesome,’” he then winks at the camera and continues. There are also several callbacks to the original Naked Gun series, such as when Frank and Ed Jr. watch as a passerby spills a vase on their father’s memory before losing their composure at two plaques in front of which they are sitting that commemorate the Police Squad.

Some Humor Might Be Lost in Translation

It may not sound like it, but those two lines are minor jokes in comparison to some of the absurd humor to be found in the teaser. The film’s plot is not the most important thing when it comes to Naked Gun, but as a broad canvas for the gag-heavy script, it’s enough to get by. Beth’s brother has been murdered, and, because the Police Squad will be shut down if Frank Jr. doesn’t solve it, Beth enlists Drebin Jr.’s help. After interviewing her at the police station, one of Drebin’s suspects is so incredulous at the whole idea that he says he spent 20 years in prison for “man’s laughter.” Drebin tries to correct him, “manslaughter,” he says, “must have been quite the joke.” As Drebin’s superior would say, “Wow.”

It’s broad, pun-filled, toilet humor, and some may well find it tacky, but that’s the beauty of it. We all know there’s not much substance in the Naked Gun series, but we also know it’s all in good fun and was never trying to take itself too seriously to begin with. If the first teaser is anything to go by, it seems Liam Neeson is more than up for taking the role seriously, doing just about everything except not falling over in spectacular and/or painful-looking fashion. After what seems like an eternity since the last Drebin film in 1994, the real question is, do we have what it takes for a 2025 launch?