Original ‘Naked Gun’ Director Refuses to Watch New Film: ‘I Have No Intention to See It’

Gabrielle Moss August 5, 11:42 am

THE NAKED GUN, Leslie Nielsen, 1988, — (c)Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

David Zucker — legendary director of the original 1988 Naked Gun film, and co-director, with partners Jim Abrahams and brother Jerry Zucker, of classic comedies like Airplane! and Top Secret — reached out to congratulate Akiva Schaffer, director of this year’s Naked Gun revival film, on the movie’s opening weekend success. But he also had another message for the new director: he won’t be seeing it.

In a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Zucker, 77, revealed that he had worked on a script for a new Naked Gun film that would focus on the son of Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), the hero of the original Naked Gun trilogy. Though the new film follows a similar premise, Zucker had nothing to do with it.

“I texted [director Akiva Scaheffer] already, saying, ‘I hear the reviews are great, and it’s tracking well.’ He was very happy to hear from me, and we’ll probably get together later in the month when the smoke clears,” Zucker said. But, he added “I’m not gonna see it … I’ve told Akiva that I have no intention to see it.”

This isn’t necessarily a specific knock against the new film; Zucker says he didn’t see any of the sequels that were created by other people. “[Schaeffer] actually invited me to come see an early cut of it,” Zucker said, “but I told him there’s nothing I could do to help because it really isn’t what I would have done. That’s not to say that he didn’t actually end up doing a good movie. But I don’t think I could help with that.”

Zucker also refused an honorary producer credit, noting “I won’t take credit on anything that I didn’t work on from the beginning. I don’t need the money.”

In addition to his ’80s parody work, Zucker directed Scary Movie 3 and 4, and wrote the 5th installment of the franchise. His last publicly released directing work was 2008’s An American Carol. The Naked Gun, which stars Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, had a strong opening weekend and earned a 90% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.