The Naked Gun Sequel Brings Back Absurdist Humor

It’s been three decades since audiences first witnessed police officer Frank Drebin save the queen. But the sound of someone slipping on a banana peel may soon be heard once again, with Universal Pictures now officially announcing the release of the next installment of the Naked Gun franchise on August 1, 2025. Only this time, it’ll be Liam Neeson slipping into the place of Leslie Nielsen.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, the first movie in a long-running spoof-comedy series, originally hit theaters in 1988. The hit film follows Nielsen’s hyper-masculine detective character as he, alongside colleagues Inspector Nordberg (Edmund Goulding) and Captain Ed Hocken (O.J. Simpson), outsmarts a bumbling assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II during her state visit to the U.S. The madcap film became a big success and was even inducted into the National Film Registry. It earned two sequels: 1991’s The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (centering on a botched plan to kidnap one of the world’s leading nuclear scientists) and 1994’s Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (featuring Drebin racing to stop a bomb from blowing up the Academy Awards).

The Final Insult proved to be the franchise’s last hurrah, however. Universal Pictures first floated the prospect of a Naked Gun reboot in 2013, casting The Office star Ed Helms as a detective named “Frank Drebin, no relation.” That film never got made, at least partly because original producer and Naked Gun 2 director David Zucker refused to take a part in its production, reportedly describing it as “inferior.” He did briefly return to the franchise in 2017 to rewrite a script that positioned Drebin’s son as a secret agent, but the film also never came to fruition.

The franchise’s script got another rewrite in 2021, with Seth MacFarlane officially attached to helm (and this time without Zucker involved). And the new version eventually found its Frank Drebin when Neeson signed on in late 2023. The rebooted The Naked Gun will instead star him as the son of Frank Drebin Sr., named Frank Drebin Jr. Drebin Jr. is described as a lieutenant in the New Police Squad, retaining some of his dad’s crime-solving inadequacies.

Frank Drebin Jr. Is Funny, We Think

Paul Walter Hauser will play Captain Ed Hocken, Jr., the son of Drebin Sr.’s friend and partner Captain Ed Hocken. The comedian, who will also appear in Fantastic Four: First Steps next year, will team up with Neeson to solve the mystery of a murdered man. Pamela Anderson will join the cast as Beth, “a femme fatale with a mysterious past and a motive for murder, whose brother is found dead in mysterious circumstances,” a development that will force Drebin Jr. to help solve the case, or have the Police Squad disbanded. The film also stars Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, Liza Koshy, Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder, Busta Rhymes, and Eddy Yu, among others.

An official teaser for the film debuted back in April, and fans were greeted with mixed feelings. David Zucker was notably not among the film’s supporters, telling TMZ he “was deeply disappointed” in the results, and “I can’t unsee it.” But the final film may be better than some first impressions suggest. Neeson seems to have embraced the premise, mining his grim Taken character for cringeworthy laughs, with one segment of the trailer having him declare “Once you kill a man for revenge, there’s no going back” before a maniacal villain appears and he proceeds to tear his arms off before bashing him with them. “A voice in your head saying over and over ‘That was awesome,’” Neeson finishes.

A more sensitive side to Drebin Jr. is also on display in the trailer, as he and Ed Jr. tear up while contemplating plaques dedicated to their fathers. Elsewhere in the trailer, the film establishes Beth and Drebin Jr. as murder mystery-solving partners, even as the father-son duo get pranked by Ed Jr. in a hidden-camera police raid on a coffee shop restroom. Drebin Jr. also makes good on the now trademarked, “We got a problem here, boss?” rejoinder to anyone complaining about his crime-solving.

All these shenanigans exist to serve the story about Beth getting Drebin Jr. to find her brother’s killer or lose the Police Squad. But one particularly frustrating suspect Drebin interrogates talks with a thick Caribbean accent and says he got 20 years in prison for “man’s laughter.” Drebin, correcting him: “Manslaughter.” “Must have been quite the joke,” Drebin answers.

The Original Is Back

Drowning the life out of a suspect in the shower (repeatedly! ), pointing his finger at the ceiling to gesture to a nonexistent witness, and casually deploying expletive-laced exclamation points (“Damnit!”) is Neeson’s bread and butter. He seems game to the task of taking up the family business in Drebin Jr. and appears more than up to the challenge.

All this is to say, people likely won’t love it. But the humor is broad, lazily punny, and objectively ridiculous. And that’s exactly what we loved about the original Naked Gun movies. If the new trailer is any indication, it will hit theaters in 2025 just in time for you to slap the kids out of bed and start watching.