Frank Drebin Jr. Tries to Save Police Squad in the 2025 Sequel

The unmistakable tinkling sound of slapstick crimefighting will return to movie theaters in a few years. The Naked Gun, the now-classic spoof comedy franchise about an absurdly incompetent detective, will return with a fourth installment on August 1, 2025. The “legacy sequel” to Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult will see Leslie Nielsen’s Detective Frank Drebin return as a character, or rather, Drebin’s son, played by Liam Neeson.

In the original film, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), Nielsen plays Frank Drebin, a well-meaning police detective out to stop an assassination attempt against Queen Elizabeth II as she visits the United States. The film’s white-knuckle paranoia, built up around completely mundane and over-the-top scenarios, helped make it a surprise cult favorite when it hit theaters, and its spoofs of cop procedurals, as well as the humor of the characters, were praised. After two sequels, the third film in 1994, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, saw Drebin out of retirement to stop a plot to detonate a nuclear bomb at the Academy Awards.

The franchise stalled for decades after that. In 2013, Paramount proposed a Naked Gun reboot, which was greenlit and cast The Office star Ed Helms as Frank Drebin, “no relation.” Helms worked with Seth MacFarlane on a version of the script, but the project stalled, due in part to David Zucker, who produced and directed the first two Naked Gun films, refusing to work on the reboot because he did not feel there was a way to make the film better than the original. (Zucker had been involved for a brief period in 2017 when a reworked version of the script was being worked on, and Drebin’s son was a secret agent.) In 2021, MacFarlane said the project was back in the works and was ready to direct, but without Zucker. It was at that time that Neeson signed on, playing Frank Drebin, Jr., a police lieutenant, or, in Drebin fashion, a police lieutenant with a particularly wobbly gait.

A Polished Cast with the Comedy “Ball-Patched” in the Right Place

Paul Walter Hauser will play Ed Hocken, Jr., the son of Drebin Sr.’s longtime partner, Captain Ed Hocken. Hauser will be seen soon in the Fantastic Four: First Steps, playing the Mole Man. Pamela Anderson, a long-time friend of the Nielsen family and a friend of Neeson and his wife, is playing Beth, a femme fatale whose brother has been murdered, the central mystery around which the film’s plot hangs. Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, Liza Koshy, Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder, Busta Rhymes, and Eddy Yu are also in the film.

The film’s first teaser trailer was met with a mixed response. David Zucker, whose opinion is not entirely irrelevant, but not entirely relevant because of his legacy guard status, said after watching it, “I can’t unsee it.” However, those looking for positives can find some. Neeson seems to have fully embraced the franchise’s unhinged slapstick tone, to the point of parodying his iconic Taken roles: at one point in the trailer, he declares, “Once you kill a man for revenge, there’s no going back,” before ripping an attacker’s arms off and wielding them like blades. “A voice in your head saying over and over, ‘That was awesome,’” he continues.

The trailer also checks in with the original franchise, when in one touching moment, Frank and Ed Jr. both tear up in front of bronze plaques commemorating their fathers.

The trailer also shows just how on brand this movie is. After hearing the facts of the murder from Beth (Anderson), Drebin, Jr. flatly declares, “The Police Squad is shutting down. You need me to solve this, or it’s over.” In classic Naked Gun fashion, the supporting cast’s reactions in the scene subvert the narrative urgency Drebin created, particularly when one of the suspects Drebin questions says he was in prison for 20 years “for man’s laughter.” Drebin is corrected, “manslaughter,” to which he replies, flatly, “Must have been quite the joke.”

In one scene, Frank pulls his shirt off to put on an exposé undershirt before being doused with Champagne, then traipsing his way through a coffee shop (over several tables) and then the bathroom to stop “police business” to “get laid.” While throwing a punch is a Naked Gun staple, Drebin Jr.’s complete deadpanness as he does it perfectly captures what it was that made those films so fun.

As far as jokes go, this is, as with all Naked Guns, low-hanging fruit for a reason, so it’s pun-heavy, double-entendre loaded, and, quite frankly, bonkers. But that was also one of the best parts about both of the earlier films, so here’s hoping the full film is as primed for mindless nostalgia fun as the first trailer suggests.