Now that the hype for the next installment in The Naked Gun series – starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr. – is real, we do all have to remember the time when we were all skeptical. Face it, without Leslie Nielsen and any of ZAZ (Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers) at play, what good could possibly come of it? Really, couldn’t someone from the original writing team have had a hand in the movie? As it turns out, David Zucker says he was excluded entirely from the process of The Naked Gun.
For a little background here, Zucker was previously quoted as saying he did in fact get the script for The Naked Gun delivered to him, noting, “I read the script, and I politely told them I wasn’t going to put my name on it. They wanted nothing from me except my name.” With The Naked Gun speeding towards its August 1st release, Zucker is now doubling down on how he feels he was treated, saying, “I didn’t decline – I was excluded.” As the reports now go, once he heard that Seth MacFarlane was becoming involved in the franchise, he tried to meet with him, only to be turned down because MacFarlane wanted to have his own screenplay written first. As the project evolved, MacFarlane moved into the producer role.
Some of Zucker’s disdain for this summer’s The Naked Gun may come from the fact that his own fourth Naked Gun movie never got the greenlight. As Zucker tells it, “Together, with original Naked Gun writers Pat Proft and Mike McManus, we created a story set in the world of international espionage, spoofing James Bond and Mission Impossible, which would have refreshed the franchise with a younger cast and a more contemporary genre rather than try to copy the old Naked Gun ‘LA Cop’ model.” That obviously didn’t pan out. “Well, time passed, we didn’t hear anything, then one morning I woke up to read that Seth MacFarlane had come in and taken over the franchise!…Well, that’s Hollywood.”
David Zucker is next launching another spoof, this time of MasterClass. Titled “MasterCrash: A Crash Course in Spoof Comedy”, the course – which launches next month as a way to dissect the art of the genre – also offered Zucker one more opportunity to swipe MacFarlane, citing ZAZ’s famous 15 rules of comedy. “When I eventually read the MacFarlane script, I was inspired to create an online ‘crash course’ in spoof comedy. After the release of Naked Gun 4, maybe Seth will take it!”
How do you feel about David Zucker’s attitude over this year’s The Naked Gun?
