The creator and director of the first Naked Gun movies hasn’t held back with his feelings about the latest reboot as he admits he will never watch the film starring Liam Neeson
David Zucker speaks to The Mirror about being cut out of The Naked Gun reboot
The original creator and director of the Naked Gun movies has pulled no punches when it comes his thoughts about the reboot of the iconic franchise. David Zucker, who is also the legend behind other big-screen hits such as Airplane and Scary Movie 3 and 4, revealed his disappointment with this year’s release involving Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson.
Speaking exclusively to the Mirror, the movie guru admits he hasn’t watched the full remake – and has no intention of doing so. However, he did read the script and confessed he “can’t unsee” the trailer for the “cr*p” film.
Despite his brutal admission, he confessed he was still “rooting for it to be a success”. “I was rooting for it to be a success, because if comedy would do well in the movie theatres, then maybe studios will do comedies instead.
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“This thing did the opposite, you know. It’s a piece of cr*p and, although I haven’t seen it, I’ve just seen the trailer – I hate having seen it, because you can’t unsee these things. “
Zucker also claimed his position to help on the remake was surprisingly removed after initially being told bosses wanted him to be a part of it. So much so, he had produced a new script.
“We were in talks with Paramount to do it,” he said. “And I would direct. And then suddenly, Seth MacFarlane comes in, and, you know, he’s a big, famous, rich producer, and he comes in with a big star, Liam Neeson, and he thought he knew how to do it better.
“So totally, I got wiped out. And that’s Hollywood. So they went ahead and did it…. they don’t think I am capable of doing it, it’s weird. It’s just weird. And all I can say is, that’s Hollywood….Paramount owns the franchise. They can do what they want.”
He admits the reboot “could have been great” as he explained how different his script would have been. Describing how his vision had the franchise heading into the Mission Impossible spy thriller type creation, Zucker said they had retitled their idea Counter Intelligence and it was going to follow the story of Leslie Nielsen’s character’s son.
“It was going to be a 30-something guy. To cast an older guy like Leslie or Liam is a 40 year old idea, we did that.”
Opening up on the casting of Neeson and Anderson, Zucker was very complimentary of the duo and their careers. However, he admitted it wouldn’t have been the path he would have went down.
“I love Pam Anderson,” he gushed. “I directed her in Scary Movie 3 and she’s a great person. Liam, I’ve never met, but he’s a fine actor.”
And he said their stardom was actually part of the movie’s downfall, adding: “In fact, you know, this is the other mistake that they make. We always used B actors like Leslie Nielsen and Robert Stack [at the time].
“I did interviews months ago about this, you know, and the headline said ‘Zucker would not have cast Liam Neeson’, as though I didn’t like Liam Neeson, or would have cast another old guy. No, it would have been no old guys. That’s an old idea.”
Zucker went on to claim that while MacFarlane can be seen as a legend in his own style of production, it didn’t mean he was right for this particular role. “You can’t be a fanboy and then think you can do the movies, you know?
“The guy at my dry cleaners loves Naked Gun, but it doesn’t mean he can do it. So there you have Seth McFarlane thinking, ‘well, I’m such a great, famous, rich producer’. I mean, this guy can print money from Family Guy. But they can’t do it [Naked Gun].”
Despite his views, Zucker admits he has no hard feelings towards MacFarlane. And he also said he has left the shun behind him and is currently focusing on his latest creation.
Zucker is currently in pre-production for a film noir movie titled Star Of Malta. “That’ll be my my work that I’ll be very proud of it, he said.
“Spoof has not changed. I mean, Star of Malta will be spoof 2.0. This represents an evolution of what we have called spoof but I always want to do something new.
“And my Naked Gun, or would have bee a little bit evolved from the Naked Guns, but not as much as as Star Malta is really represents a whole new thing.
“It’s a black and white movie set in 1949 and it’s gonna look exactly like it was shot in 1949, so I’m excited about that.”
As well as his new movie, Zucker revealed he was shocked at how the 15 rules of spoof comedy weren’t followed in The Naked Gun, so he started his own online course in comedy. “It’s called MasterCrash,” he told us.
“I’m teaching the rules. And there’s so many things involved in writing and directing comedy, and most specifically spoof comedy. I’ve done about 17 episodes, one, one on the on each rule, and then another kind of introductory episodes about comedy in general.
“It’s material that you cannot learn in college, because the college professors, I mean, they may be very knowledgeable about film, but they don’t have the experience of having done it. So this is unique.”
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Source: Mirror
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