The Naked Gun Gets Reloaded for a Reboot
December 16, 2013 by dracs
My name's Frank Drebin, Police Squad, and don't let me catch you guys rebooting my movie! Yes it looks like we are in for a remake of the classic spoof film The Naked Gun, minus the sadly departed Leslie Nielson.
For the two of you who have never seen them, The Naked Gun films were a trilogy of spoof police and action movies focused around the bumbling member of Police Squad, Frank Drebin, played by the king of parody Leslie Nielson.
Now it looks like a remake is on its way, but since Leslie Nielson passed away in 2010 who is going to be Frank Drebin? Why none other than this guy:
Ed Helms, star of the popular Hangover movie franchise, where he played the neurotic dentist Dr. Stu Price.
Now I haven't seen much of this guy as an actor, but Helms did do a good job in those films, playing as the straight man of the trio. However, the source of much of his humour came from his growing, over-the-top panic as events unfurled around him. I am not sure this sort of performance would match well with the typically suave Frank Drebin.
Image taken from The Guardian website
As a long standing fan of the original films I really cannot see why they need a remake. They're classics. But, as I said on the Weekender, just because one film did it well doesn't mean another can't try. Maybe this could see parody as a genre rise once more, rather than just being treated to the endless quagmire of references which passes for it nowadays.
What do you think of this guys? Who would you have cast for Frank Drebin?
Well I just lost what little faith in humanity I had.
First Robocop, now this. Why do they do this? (for money of course). I’m waiting for the Gone with the Wind remake.
I’m sure it will be just as successful as Steve Martin’s Pink Panther remake. lol
I’m sure this will affect my life as much as the Italian Job remake. Yes it happened, no I’ll never see it.
The Italian Job wasn’t so bad because it was the Italian Job in name only. Nothing else except the inclusion of minis was related to The Italian Job. It pretty much just adopted the name to generate interest in what was otherwise a fairly standard action movie
Someone roll up what everyone has said into a ball please and I will bounce along with that.
@thrawn
I remake gone with the wind on an all too regular basis :*)
I’m not letting any children on horses near you then 😛
Wise move
Have known erstwhile healthy shire horses drop to their knees at a distance of 50 paces .
for the love of God, Buddah, the flying spaghetti monster, or whatever deity you may pray to, stop making remakes/reboots/rehashes of movies that dont fricking need it
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This is a big mistake!!!
You cannot remake Naked gun without leslie nielson, just no! Anyway if they did it as a modern comedy it wouldnt be funny. The 2000’s humour is different to the 80/90s and just wouldnt work trying to do it. Leave it be as the classics they are.
Its like the reboot of Back to the Future they are trying to do. Has hollywood lost originality are there no more ideas for original films? why is everything getting rebooted???
Remake Back to the Future? Nah.
A Back to the Future sequel though… Now that could be illuminating.
Can’t be any worse than ‘hot tub time machine’ at least…
Not good work, Frank.
What next? Spice Girls the movie redux?
Naked Gun was great because of the humour at the time and Leslie Neilsons involvement. Humour is different now and Leslie wont be in it. Oh well another film I can avoid at the overly expensive cinema. I think my next 2 films will be Hobbit 2, followed by hobbit 3. 🙂
Will OJ be back in his old role 🙂
Maybe Chris Brown will be rebooting OJs role… 😉
I watched the original Naked Gun films and found them hilarious even now. To me, Leslie Neilson made those movies come to life.
I’m not really looking forward to the re-boots tbh, they just won’t be the same.
Two responses to this…
1: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!
2: If they try to reboot Airplane! I’m gonna stab someone. (Not really…please don’t call the cops)
As long as people are willing to see them they will make them. Half of our childhood TV shows have been made into movies. In some cases very profitable. That also goes for remakes, re-boots and the like. One reason is that they know that a certain percentage liked the older version and will go to see it out of sentimentality or devotion of the past in hopes that they might replicate it. The other reason is security for the film makers. Movies are becoming more and more expensive every year to make. Its a big gamble for them to… Read more »
The movie business has gone mad. There are now only super-expensive blockbusters and cheap artistic/independent movies being done… what happened to the good, yet middle-budget film ?
Seriously….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc
I honestly couldn’t be more horrified at the thought of this tripe. Actually, I would be more horrified if they tried to do Airplane.
Personally, I don’t want it to be a ‘Reboot’ – I would like to take it as an Homage to Nielson, for all we know this Actor could be a BIG fan of Leslie Nielson and actually want to make a good tribute to the Star.
I’m certain Leslie Nielson himself would be glad that SOMEONE wanted to remake the Naked Gun Movies.
that said… if it gets Botched Up – if they Stray too far from the Ideals of Nielson… well…
JIHAD!!!!!!! NERD-RAAAAAAAGE!!!!! AAAAAARRRMAAAAAGEEEEEDDDDOOON!!!!!
The problem with crappy remakes is that the studios do their best to bury the original — they want the latest one to be the only one. Then when the remake tanks, the whole franchise is forgotten. This is probably because film is a reproducible media unlike, say, theater. If someone makes a bad adaptation of Hamlet on stage, it doesn’t mean Hamlet is forgotten. It means the bad adaptation is forgotten. (Ok, admittedly this does apply to film versions of classic tales to some extent too. They won’t stop remaking Robin Hood anytime soon.) The whole cult of the… Read more »
The shit’s gonna hit the fan…
It’s being made because somebody somewhere thinks it’ll make money, and as long as it does make money then it will have done it’s job. Whether it’ll be any good or not is neither here nor there. So much of what worked about the Naked Gun movies was derived from Neilson’s performance, so Ed Helms is on a hiding to nothing. Either he does a good impression, in which case everyone is reminded of what they’re missing, or he does a bad impression and everyone craps on him and the movie. The third option is not try and imitate Neilson… Read more »
I’m okay with remaking old b/w classics but why Naked Gun, it was perfect first time round, don’t mess with perfection. You wouldn’t remake The Godfather
Needles
Hollywood is out of inspiration i guess, so reboot time.
At least mr Bay hasnt caught on the idea of making a movie about the 80ties cartoons M.A.S.K (not the green headed one you youngsters, the ones with cars)
Das Boot reboot
I’m waiting for someone to mention MASH. Then I am getting my shotgun.
OHPLEASENOPLEASENOGODPLEASENO… Not MASH…
Surely this is someone’s idea of a bad joke, either that or someone’s suffering from the “missing originality gene” syndrome!
Apparantly it’s true…. and STOP CALLING ME SHIRLEY!
Its lazy film making with a low to no risk gamble on the cash. While however we are talking about reboots. Judge Dredd first time out got Sly Stallone doing a skit on almost 20 years of comic history.. Badly at that. It almost totally killed the name and genre because even fans would back off from any further butchering of the legend. However the very under rated recent outing was much in keeping with the original without going mad to reach a too futuristic image. Sometimes reboots are good.
Stallone’s Judge Dredd was Dreadful
The recent Dredd was more like the original comics – quite brutal, but with some well choreographed and filmed scenes.