Original Naked Gun Director Blasts $42 Million Reboot for Copying the Formula — Here’s What Set Them Off

David Zucker is not thrilled about the new Naked Gun. The 78-year-old co-creator of the original formula says the 2025 reboot with Liam Neeson borrowed the surface gags, blew the budget, and missed the point. And he is very specific about why.

What set Zucker off

In a chat with Woman's World, Zucker called out producer Seth MacFarlane for, in his view, copying the vibe without understanding the mechanics. Zucker and his longtime collaborators, his brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams, believe the new team fundamentally misread how their comedy worked.

"My brother, Jerry, and our partner, Jim Abrahams, started doing spoof comedies 50 years ago, and we originated our own style — and we did that so well that it looks easy, evidently. People started copying it, like Seth MacFarlane for the new 'Naked Gun.' He totally missed it."

He also took aim at the movie's spend. In Zucker's mind, comedy and big price tags do not mix, and this remake tries to wow you with expensive spectacle instead of jokes delivered straight.

The money question: jokes vs. 'technical pizzazz'

Zucker says one of the ZAZ ground rules was to keep budgets low so the audience focuses on the jokes, not flashy production. He even has a name for the stuff he thinks gets in the way: 'technical pizzazz.' The remake reportedly cost about $42 million. The 1988 original? Roughly $14.5 million. If you adjust that older budget for inflation, it lands just under $40 million in 2025 dollars, which makes the new one's price tag comparatively fatter and, to Zucker, unnecessary.

He argues you can see the money on screen in sequences built around elaborate effects rather than straight-faced absurdity. One example: director Akiva Schaffer kept an expensive CG snowman love scene, which is exactly the kind of flourish Zucker says undercuts the comedy he and his team perfected.

The reboot he did not get to make

Before Paramount moved ahead with the MacFarlane-produced version, Zucker submitted his own script for a fourth film titled 'The Naked Gun 44 1/4: Nordberg Did It.' Paramount passed. He later found out the studio hired MacFarlane to oversee a new take without bringing him in. If that title rings a bell, yes, Nordberg is the character O.J. Simpson played in the originals — a very pointed choice by Zucker that the studio clearly did not pursue.

How ZAZ actually built this thing

ZAZ — Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker — did not stumble into this. They developed a very specific approach that reshaped American comedy and made a lot of money doing it.

• Rules of the road: keep budgets lean and have dramatic actors play everything dead straight. No mugging. No winking. The absurdity lands because the performances treat nonsense like Shakespeare.
• The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977): raised about $650,000 independently after studios passed; earned around $7 million, proving their sketch-spoof style could sell.
• Airplane! (1980): cost about $3.5 million and pulled in roughly $83.5 million worldwide; now in the National Film Registry for cultural significance.
• Police Squad! (ABC, 1982): canceled after just four episodes aired. The idea came back as The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! in 1988 and made over $78 million domestically.
• Casting strategy: hire serious faces like Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, and Peter Graves, then have them treat every ridiculous line like a courtroom reading.
• Later work: Zucker steered Scary Movie 3 and 4 to hits; BASEketball in 1998, not so much.

So how does the 2025 movie actually stack up?

Financially, the reboot has done fine, with about $102.1 million globally. But the legacy comparison is tougher. The 1988 film made $78 million in the U.S. and Canada alone on that $14.5 million budget, and it turned Leslie Nielsen — a longtime dramatic actor — into a comedy icon by weaponizing his gravitas. Liam Neeson commits, but critics said he could not replicate Nielsen's once-in-a-generation deadpan; AP News gave the new one 2 out of 4 stars.

There are also clear stylistic detours from the ZAZ playbook. Beyond the CG snowman bit, the reboot trims the original's famous opening credits gag-run and generally lowers the joke-per-minute burn, which is exactly the kind of density ZAZ fans expect. That is the gap Zucker keeps pointing to: the machinery is different, even if some of the parts look familiar.

Where to watch

'The Naked Gun' (2025) is streaming on Paramount+. If you want a refresher on why Zucker is so territorial about this style, rewatch the first movie and Airplane! back-to-back and you will see the blueprint he is defending.