Liam Neeson says he and Seth MacFarlane have talked about rebootingThe Naked Gun. StarringLeslie Nielsen as inept police detective Frank Drebin,Naked Gun began life as the TV seriesPolice Squad! before heading to the big screen in 1988. The brainchild ofAirplane! comedy team Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, the film grossed $140 million at the box office and spawned a pair of sequels.

Filled with the kinds of silly gags that made Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker a genuine comedy brand in the 1980s,Naked Gun helped revive the career of Nielsen, a one-time serious dramatic actor who later in life discovered a talent for deadpan comedy. Nielsen of course would stay on the comedy path after playing Frank Drebin, appearing in a string of spoofs includingRepossessed,Dracula: Dead and Loving It,Spy Hard andWrongfully Accused. The last of Nielsen’sNaked Gun films was released in 1994 and in recent years there has been sporadic talk of a reboot, including a 2013 announcement by Paramount that they were moving forward with a newNaked Gun movie starringEd Helms as Drebin.

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Obviously that 2013 announcement proved to be premature as it’s now been over seven years and there’s still noNaked Gun reboot movie with Helms as Drebin. However, talk of rebooting the franchise does continue as Neeson revealed in a recent appearance onPeople (the TV Show!). Neeson said, "I've been approached by Seth MacFarlane and Paramount Studios to maybe resurrect the Naked Gun films.” He added, "It'll either finish my career or bring it in another direction. I honestly don't know."

Indeed this isn’t the first time there’s been talk of Neeson doingNaked Gun style comedy, as MacFarlane himself back in 2015 talked in an interview about wanting to cast Neeson, who he insists is hilarious, as a Frank Drebin-like character. Going by Neeson’s remarks, it seems the possibility of aNaked Gun reboot with MacFarlane is more than realistic as Paramount itself appears to be involved. The last report about the possibility of aNaked Gun return revealed thatDavid Zucker himself was working on a script that would be about the son of Frank Drebin.

Neeson of course is not at all known for comedy, but has carved out quite a niche for himself as an action hero thanks to theTaken films as well as thrillers likeNon-Stop,The Commuter and the more recentHonest Thief andThe Marksman. For him to do a sudden comedy turn this late in the game would in fact mirrorNaked Gun star Nielsen’s career arc, as he was almost purely a dramatic actor before taking on roles in films likeAirplane!. It certainlysounds like Neeson is about ready to leave action movies behind and try something new, and starring in a reboot ofThe Naked Gun would certainly represent a 180 from the kinds of movies he’s been churning out for the last fifteen years. Living up to the hilarious legacy of Nielsen’s Frank Drebin would however be a tall order for Neeson, even if he is as funny as MacFarlane seems to think.

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Source:People (the TV Show!)