Next up in great movies that do not really need a remake: The Naked Gun. Well, maybe ‘great’ is a somewhat hyperbolic term, but one cannot deny that The Naked Gun and the sequels it spawned are still among the most entertaining spoofs to come out of the 1980s. With the current trend of rebooting everything made from 1980-1999, it’s no surprise that The Naked Gun has come up for a remake at Paramount, this time with Ed Helms taking on the lead role that Leslie Nielsen made famous.
Helms will play Detective Frank Drebin, the ultra-serious and largely incompetent cop that Nielsen played in the original Police Squad! TV series and the three Naked Gun films. The Naked Gun reboot could very well relaunch the franchise if Helms can manage to equal Nielsen’s ability to deliver ridiculous lines as though he completely believes in them.
While I’m skeptical about any reboot of an already excellent franchise, I suppose that Helms is one of the few comedians capable of stepping into Nielsen’s shoes. He’s been the best part of a number of comedies so far (and I include The Hangover series in that appraisal), and is always a likeable screen presence.
The reboot is being written by Thomas Lennon and R. Ben Garant, of Reno 911! and Hell Baby fame. Their presence also adds fuel to the fire, with their specialization in broad comedy and experience in spoofing police dramas.
In the end, we’ll have to wait and see what Lennon and Garant come up with for The Naked Gun. It’s still early days, with no director yet attached, but we can expect to see The Naked Gun within the next year or so.
What do you think of Ed Helms taking on Leslie Nielsen’s role? Can Lennon and Garant do justice to The Naked Gun? Let us know in the comments below.
