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2025 has been one of the weaker years for the film industry as high-budget films like Captain America: Brave New World and Snow White have failed at both impressing the audience and at the box office. While there have been many disappointments this year, it does not mean that there have been no good movies released this year, and to prove that, we have compiled a list of the best movies that have come out in 2025 so far.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (In Theaters) Credit – Marvel Studios

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a superhero sci-fi action film directed by Matt Shakman from a screenplay co-written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer. The 2025 MCU film is set in an alternate universe, and it revolves around the Fantastic Four as their world comes under attack...

The Naked Gunreboot'sdirector and co-writer, Akiva Schaffer, has addressed the film's "polarizing" montage involving a snowman in a recent interview. The action comedy legacy sequel, which stars Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., has received generally positive reviews since its release on Aug. 1, with The Naked Gun earning a particularly high Rotten Tomatoes score of 89%.

With The Naked Gun'scountless Easter eggs and references, it has been branded a brilliantly funny reboot, with Neeson showcasing his lesser-known comedic side. However, that is not to say that The Naked Gun didn't experience some problems in development,as its director recalls the initial response to a certain scene involving a snowman causing a stir.

The scene in question occurs during a montage mid-way through The Naked Gun, where Frank and Beth (Pamela Anderson) have a romantic getaway in a winter cabin.After using a book of spells to bring a specially-made snowman to life,...

While it took decades for a fourth installment in The Naked Gun franchise to hit the big screen, it sounds like we could be left waiting even longer for a fifth. Directed by Akiva Schaffer and from producer Seth MacFarlane, this year's The Naked Gun acts as both a reboot and a legacy sequel and features Liam Neesonas the son of the late, great Leslie Nielson's Detective Frank Drebin. The action comedy has already been a huge hit, but is Neeson interested in stretching his comedic muscles again in a follow-up?

Speaking with News Week recently, Liam Neeson revealed if there were any plans to make more Naked Gun movies after this year’s effort, with the aged action icon offering an answer that’s sure to disappoint fans.

"I think it's a one-off, yeah. And if it succeeds, good."

Adding, "I think the film's going to have a...

Action icon Liam Neeson has teamed up with Stranger Things star Joe Keery and Barbarian breakout Georgina Campbell for his next major movie. All three star in the first trailer for Cold Storage.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has released the official teaser trailer for Cold Storage, which follows two young employees of a self-storage company built on the site of an old U.S. military base — Keery's Teacake and Campbell's Naomi — as they have their wildest night shift ever when a parasitic fungus escapes from the lowest sublevel of the base where it was sealed away by the government years before. As the temperature rises underground, this highly contagious and rapidly mutating microorganism multiplies and unleashes its brain-controlling, body-bursting terrors on the facility’s inhabitants – human and otherwise.

Neeson co-stars in Cold Storage as grizzled retired bioterror operative Robert Quinn, who helps Teacake and Naomi contain the merciless menace and prevent...

The writers of the latest The Naked Gundiscuss exactly who inspired the film's main antagonist.

Speaking toThe Hollywood Reporter, The Naked Gun co-writer Dan Gregor responded to the question whether the film's main villain was inspired by Elon Musk, stating, "Honestly, the funniest thing is, no." Gregor continued, "Our hope is that Cane [Danny Huston] is an amalgamation of all of the terrible billionaires in the world. We were really set on wanting this movie to have a certain amount of comedy timelessness, and so not getting pigeonholed in any one specific was really important for us. It’s one of the miracles of the original movie, too, that it dated better than just about any comedy ever."

Directed by The Lonely Island's Akiva Schaffer from a screenplay co-written alongside Gregor and Doug Mand, The Naked Gun stars Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Leslie Nielsen...

One of the biggest shadows cast over the original trilogy of Naked Gun movies is the Zucker brothers casting of O.J. Simpson in the role of Nordberg. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for the Zuckers to put sports figures in some supporting roles, as they also used athletes like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a classic role in Airplane. However, Simpson played somewhat of a prominent character, and with the new incarnation of the spoof film addressing how the characters are the offspring of the originals, this left the writers with something hanging.

Director Akiva Schaffer wrote the film with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand. Gregor and Mand have recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter, where they talk about addressing the elephant in the room. THR asks what their discussion was like in approaching the issue and Mand explains,

The O.J. thing was one of the first questions Kiva,...

The Naked Gun writers are proud to have stuffed their reboot with references to the classic movies.

Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who co-wrote Paramount’s comedy reboot with director Akiva Schaffer, sat down with The Hollywood Reporter after the film’s solid opening weekend at the box office. Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson star in the franchise’s fourth movie that revives the spoof series that featured Leslie Nielsen playing detective Frank Drebin and kicked off with director David Zucker’s original 1988 film.

During the interview, Gregor and Mand discuss acknowledging O.J. Simpson previously starring in the franchise as Officer Nordberg; potential ideas for another sequel; and how they landed on the movie’s memorable cameos.

The film’s villain definitely feels Elon Musk-coded.

Dan Gregor Musk-y?

Were there concerns about igniting the wrath of someone like Musk?

Gregor Honestly, the funniest thing is, no. Our hope is...

Liam Neeson is currently promoting his new movie, The Naked Gun, and recently talked with The Rolling Stone about his long career and the film. When asked about the best advice he ever received, Neeson shared, “Stay poised, an old professional actor told me once, right.” He also reflected on the ups and downs of acting, saying he wishes someone had told him “the highs would’ve been great, and the lows would have been very low.”

Talking about success, Neeson remembered a saying: “It’s terrible when people are talking about you, and it’s even worse when they’re not talking about you.” He also named one of his acting heroes from the past, Spencer Tracy, who he admired for being genuine on screen. “He was always so real. Without putting on false noses and strange accents and all this sort of shit — he was just always present and real,...

Warning: Spoilers for The Naked GunThe Naked Gun is a joyful reboot-slash-legacy sequel that doesn’t require viewers to have seen the original trilogy of slapstick spoof films–and, apparently, that’s all thanks to a small act of rebellion by its writers. Directed by The Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer, the movie was co-written by him, Doug Mand, and Dan Gregor.

The movie is packed wall-to-wall with funny moments, but one of The Naked Gun’s most unexpected sequences involves Liam Neeson’s Frank Drebin, Jr. being carried through the air by an owl that is supposedly his father, the original Frank Drebin played by Leslie Nielsen.

As part of a larger ScreenRant interview discussing The Naked Gun, writers Doug Mand and Dan Gregor revealed how they landed on the idea of the original Frank Drebin appearing in owl form. It turns out that one of the movie’s...

[Editor’s note: The following interviews contain spoilers for “The Naked Gun.”]

It’s a scene that comes out of nowhere, and the one people want to talk about after seeing the new “Naked Gun” movie. At the mid-way point in the film, Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) and Beth (Pamela Anderson) have fallen in love, setting into motion an ‘80s-style montage following the new couple on a lover’s getaway to a winter cabin.

At the isolated cabin, a book of spells brings Frank and Beth’s cheerfully-made snowman to life. At first, the snowman is part of the couple’s silly, intimate games, but eventually becomes a third wheel, resulting in homicidal rage and the love montage descending into something more akin to a horror movie.

The snowman is so off-the-wall, brazen, and hysterical — the perfect mix of “The Naked Gun” and the Lonely Island style of humor — and it is also the best example of how...

Pamela Anderson calls it the “coldest love scene ever,” Liam Neeson jokes that an intimacy coordinator had to “teach him to romance a snowman,” and Paramount is betting the cheeky moment will help its Naked Gun reboot restore faith in the theatrical comedy business. The pair’s playful disclosures, joined by brisk box-office tracking and a swirl of real-life romance rumors, have turned an 85-minute spoof into one of the summer’s liveliest talking points.

Anderson revealed during a press stop that the film contains an unexpected threesome involving a snowman, adding that the sight gag “made everyone on set lose it”. Neeson told Stephen Colbert the sequence marked his first time working with an intimacy coordinator and required “painstaking choreography” to keep the joke PG-13. Director Akiva Schaffer later said the gag came from writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who wanted a moment “as surreal as anything in...

Talk about a two-edged sword.

Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps easily stayed atop the domestic box office chart in its second weekend with $40 million, but tumbled a worrisome 66 percent. That’s more than anyone could have predicted after the event pic opening to $117.6 million last weekend amid stellar audience and critical reaction. At the same time, it isn’t entirely outside the range of normal for the superhero genre. And there’s still a clear runway ahead before summer ends.

Fantastic Four had hoped to clear $200 million domestically through Sunday, but instead is projecting a 10-day domestic tally of $198.4 million, compared to cume of $236.2 million and a drop of 53 percent for DC Studos’ Superman in its second weekend (to be fair, the Man of Steel didn’t have another superpic to compete with, although Jurassic Park Rebirth had only opened a week earlier). Overseas, Mister Fantastic and his...

Back in 2008, Liam Neeson stepped into a role that would change his career forever. In Taken, he played Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent whose daughter is kidnapped while on a trip to Paris. The movie didn’t just do well at the box office, it turned Neeson into an action star almost overnight. And it gave audiences one of the most quoted scenes in modern movie history.

The scene happens after his daughter is taken and Mills gets on the phone with one of the kidnappers. He doesn’t shout or panic. Instead, he calmly delivers a chilling warning: “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career,...

In Taken (2008), Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA operative whose daughter is kidnapped in Paris. It’s a movie that changed the direction of Neeson’s career, redifing him as an action star, but it also gave us plenty of lines to quote memes from.

The famous phone call scene is certainly the most memorable. The kidnappers grab his daughter, and he gets on the phone with them. He calmly delivers a monologue:

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you,...

The Naked Gun is on track to set a major box office record. The 2025 movie is a reboot and legacy sequel that stars Liam Neeson as the wacky cop Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the character played by Leslie Nielsen in the 1982 parody series Police Squad! and the original Naked Gun movie trilogy that spun off from it.

2025's The Naked Gun was directed by Akiva Schaffer from a script he wrote with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand. It marks Liam Neeson's first time toplining a comedy movie since 2020's Made in Italy, a dramedy in which he co-starred with his son, Micheál Richardson.

Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, The Naked Gun is projected to debut with a total of $16.5 million at the domestic box office, premiering at No. 3 behind The Bad Guys 2 and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

If it does indeed hit that number by the end of Sunday,...

This article contains spoilers for "The Naked Gun."

This month's reboot of "The Naked Gun" may be a parody of the action film in general, but that doesn't mean its satiric targets are all that broad. The movie recognizably spoofs at least a handful of films, though not in a fashion that would allow the film to become quickly dated, something that /Film's Ethan Anderton observes in his review. In other words, there's nothing like the moment from "Hot Shots: Part Deux," in which Saddam Hussein is shot to pieces and then reforms a la the T-1000 in "Terminator 2," happening here. Instead, "The Naked Gun," as directed by co-writer (and "The Lonely Island" member) Akiva Schaffer, is more concerned with stuffing its brief runtime with jokes-a-plenty. In a similar fashion to Schaffer's prior comedy movies like "Hot Rod" and "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping," "The Naked Gun" is all about the yuks.

What better way to go out than to go out laughing.

Paramount’s acclaimed The Naked Gun revival — starring Liam Neeson opposite Pamela Anderson — started off its North American run with a Friday gross of $6.3 million for an estimated opening of $16.5 million.

That’s good enough for a third-place finish behind Marvel holdover The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which remains perched in first-place with an estimated $40 million second weekend, and Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s new family pic The Bad Guys 2, which grossed $9.2 million on Friday for an estimated $22.8 million launch. (Superman won the day with nearly $12 million.) Both new entries are opening on the higher end of expectations.

As fate would have it, Naked Gun is the last film that the current iteration of Paramount Pictures will release before David Ellison’s Skydance officially closes its $8 billion merger with Paramount Global on Aug. 7. Affable movie studio chief Brian Robbins...

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is hanging on to No. 1 in its sophomore outing at the box office, despite a disappointing weekend two result and competition from Dave Franco, Detective Frank Drebin Jr. and “The Bad Guys” crew.

“Fantastic Four” grossed $11.7 million domestically in its second Friday on the big screen, making for a devastating 80% drop from its debut. With that disappointing result, the film will most likely fall short of its initial weekend two estimates of $45 to $52 million by Sunday. Its domestic grand total currently sits at $129.7 million and could reach as high as $170 million by the end of the weekend. Marvel shelled out more than $200 million to produce “Fantastic Four.”

The comic book tentpole, headlined by Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn, was shaping up to be the MCU’s first post-pandemic success at bringing a new super team to cinemas after missing the mark with “Thunderbolts*” in May,...

This article contains minor spoilers for "The Naked Gun," so beware.

The reboot of the classic spoof franchise "The Naked Gun" hits theaters this weekend, and you'd be hard pressed to find a comedy that packs so many hilarious jokes into its breezy hour and a half runtime. Seriously, there hasn't been a comedy on the big screen that makes you laugh so often, so hard, and so consistently in a long time. Even if you find that a joke doesn't work for you, don't worry, another one will come along in just a moment.

That's largely because director Akiva Shaffer, along with co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, really took the time to study the magic of the original property, figuring out how to craft the story without imposing on the myriad of jokes and making sure to meticulously shape gags so they didn't overstay their welcome. There are...

The Naked Gun may be hitting theaters this weekend, but that's not the Liam Neeson movie that is currently blowing up the streaming charts. The actor's forgotten action thriller In the Land of Saints and Sinners has been rising on MGM+ for the past week.

According to FlixPatrol, as of Aug. 1, In the Land of Saints and Sinners is ranked No. 6 on MGM+'s Top 10 Overall list in the United States, up one spot from the day before. The 2023 action thriller has been slowly climbing the charts this week, going from No. 10 to No. 8 to No. 7 to now No. 6. With Neeson's latest movie, The Naked Gun, now playing in theaters, fans will have to keep an eye on MGM+'s Top 10 list to see if the legacy comedy sequel helps propel In the Land of Saints and Sinners even further up the charts.

In the Land of Saints and Sinners was directed by Robert Lorenz,...

Writer-director Akiva Schaffer initially thought a reboot of The Naked Gun was blasphemous until he realized the full potential of having Liam Neeson step into the shoes of Leslie Nielsen.

In 2021, producer Seth MacFarlane was tasked with reinventing Zaz’s (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker) beloved spoof comedy franchise after three decades and a few failed revivals along the way. The Family Guy creator’s first order of business was to attach Neeson, whom he’d worked with on A Million Ways to Die in the West and Ted 2.

From there, MacFarlane’s president at Fuzzy Door Productions, Erica Huggins, handled the director search, which quickly led her to Schaffer, due to the warm reception he’d just received for Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022). Of course, she was also a fan of his 2016 cult hit, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, as well as his longtime comedy trio, The Lonely Island,...

It's been two years since Netflix released I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson Season 3 to rapturous praise with a new set of quotable sketches that lived rent-free in viewers' heads. In that time, however, updates have been few and far between for a potential return of the gloriously unhinged comedy series, aside from the occasional affirmation that it's still coming eventually. Ahead of the release of his new The Naked Gun reboot, Akiva Schaffer was finally able to provide some more clarity beyond the fact that the show isn't dead like Corncob TV. Speaking to Collider's Steve Weintraub, he gave some insight as to how much is already written and when Tim Robinson and the team should kick the series back into gear.

When Robinson last spoke to Collider about the status of the series, he couldn't say much other than that he and co-creator Zach Kanin...

Stars: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Cch Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu, Danny Huston | Written by Akiva Schaffer, Dan Gregor, Doug Mand | Directed by Akiva Schaffer

Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson co-star in this reboot of The Naked Gun, the spoof comedy series – based on the short-lived TV show Police Squad – that previously starred Leslie Nielsen and spanned three movies, between 1988 and 1994. Directed by Akiva Schaffer (part of the Lonely Island trio), the new film is unashamedly stupid, but it delivers a steady stream of funny gags and perfectly captures the spirit of the original films. Which is pretty much the best anyone could have hoped for.

Neeson stars as Detective Sergeant Frank Drebin Jnr, the son of Nielsen’s character, which technically makes this a sequel as well as a reboot. In fact, his entire Police Squad team are the sons and daughters...

This article contains spoilers for "The Naked Gun."

I've watched the original "Naked Gun" trilogy more times than I can count. Leslie Nielsen as the bumbling police detective Frank Drebin is by far the actor's greatest comedic role, and one whose deadpan delivery rarely fails to make me laugh. Nielsen's absence, as well as zero input from David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (otherwise known as Zaz), always gave me pause whenever hearing word of a reboot on the horizon. As of this week, however, it brings me so much joy to know I can add Akiva Schaffer's exuberantly silly legacy sequel to the roster. /Film's Ethan Anderton gave "The Naked Gun" a glowing review as the funniest movie of the year, and I couldn't agree more.

Lonely Island alum Schaffer, along with producer Seth MacFarlane and co-writers Dan Gregor & Doug Mand, honor the spirit of Zaz's zany sense of humor,...

In its original iteration, the Zucker brothers’ Naked Gun wasn’t just carried by Leslie Nielsen’s performance––nearly every aspect of the first two David Zucker-directed films was a reflection of it. As buffoonish detective lieutenant Frank Drebin, Nielsen’s scenery-chewing baritone encapsulated the square-jawed, hypermasculine self-seriousness of a generation of patriotic popular entertainment unleashed on America during the Reagan years, themselves often self-conscious mimics of the leading men and man-of-action morality plays of the midcentury Hollywood pulp on which Nielsen cut his teeth. Drebin’s guileless stupidity as he bumbles through formula-perfect cop thriller plots playing the maverick hero, and Nielsen’s readiness to bug his eyes out or call a man “Mr. Poopy Pants” in the middle of an otherwise dead-serious delivery, gleefully deflated the macho put-on, luxuriating in pushing the already juvenile nature of the popular fantasies just a few key steps over the edge from self-parody to parody.

[Editor’s note: The following interview contains minor spoilers for “The Naked Gun.”]

There are a few jokes that “The Naked Gun” screenwriters and long-time partners Dan Gregor and Doug Mand are sad didn’t make it into Akiva Schaffer’s long-hoped-for new entry into the spoof canon. But mostly, the duo is thrilled about the stuff that did make it in there. All the stuff, really, enough to make a bona-fide, honest-to-God, true-blue spoof feature, the kind made by a studio and with a budget and giant stars and a full-fledged theatrical release.

For two creators (best known for everything from “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” to “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers”) who can still easily and amiably recall the feeling of seeing “Spaceballs” or the original “Naked Gun” films for the first time, it’s a dream come true. A silly dream, but still. We need those kinds of dreams these days.

The film, starring Liam Neeson, is both a reimagining...

Pedro Pascal has been one of the most talked-about actors online lately. His face is all over memes, and he’s been in what feels like every major movie and TV show. The Game of Thrones star has been getting plenty of attention not just for his acting, but also for his progressive views and open support of the LGBTQ+ community.

Recently, though, Pascal has been caught in some controversy. He was accused of inappropriately touching his engaged The Fantastic Four: First Steps co-star Vanessa Kirby. Speaking about it, Pascal explained that he often likes to be physically close to his co-stars when he feels anxious at red carpet events and premieres. It should also be pointed out that Kirby initiated contact as much as he did and never said she felt uncomfortable.

Even before that, some fans started talking about what they call “Pedro fatigue.” That’s because in the past year alone,...

Pedro Pascal has been everywhere lately. If you’ve been online, you’ve probably seen his face in countless memes. The Game of Thrones actor has been taking on role after role, and he’s gotten plenty of free publicity thanks to his progressive views and support for the LGBTQ+ community.

But he’s also been caught up in controversy recently after being accused of inappropriately touching his The Fantastic Four: First Steps co-star Vanessa Kirby, who is engaged.

Pascal has addressed the situation. He explained that he likes to stay physically close to his co-stars when he feels anxious at red carpet events and premieres. It’s important to note Kirby was just as comfortable with the interactions and even initiated some of them, and she never said she felt uneasy. As Pascal put it, it was mutual contact.

Even before this, some fans had started talking about “Pedro fatigue.

This article contains spoilers for "The Naked Gun."

As legacy sequels have been all the rage over the last couple of decades, it's become common for the stars of the original films to turn up in a years (or decades) later installment. In some cases, they return in an even more increased capacity, such as Michael Keaton's titular ghost with the most in "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." In most, however, the legacy characters are around to help pass the torch to a newer group of heroes. See, for example, "The Force Awakens" and the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy, "Tron Legacy," "Creed," "Scream," and so on. Then there's the issue of a legacy sequel wanting to use characters who were played by actors who have since passed on. A few films have problematically delved into digital necromancy in order to achieve the desired effect of characters continuing on despite their actors' deaths,...

If anyone had postulated that the star of serious fare such as Schidler’s List (1993) or Taken (2008) would show such a flare for comedy – other than the self-parody present in something like Ted 2 (2015) – they would be worthy of the title of Nostradamus. With The Naked Gun, Liam Neeson reinvents himself as a comedic force to be reckoned with and the film proves to be a more than enjoyable romp from start to finish.

The film follows Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) and his cohorts on Police Squad as they try to solve a murder before the entire police department is shut down. Of course, this is a crime that goes much deeper than the simple murder that starts the investigation. It, naturally, involves a conspiracy of some other sort that a nefarious criminal is behind whom Drebin may, or may not be destined to bring to justice.

Spawned from...

The Naked Gun seems to be doing right by Leslie Nielsen with its new reboot/sequel. The Liam Neeson-led reboot has already been wowing critics and will make its debut in cinemas on August 1. However, there were plenty of pitfalls that the new movie could have fallen into on its way to what seems to be a successful future, not least how the movie would address the controversial O.J. Simpson, who starred in the original trilogy.

From the outset, the first trailer for The Naked Gun shared its feelings for the former sportsman and actor, who fell from grace after being accused of the murders of his ex-wife and her friend in one of the highest-profile murder trials ever. In a scene where the new generation of Police Squad members pay tribute to their parents, the son of Simpson’s character, Nordberg, simply breaks the fourth wall and shakes his head.

The Naked Gun reboot arrives in theaters this week, marking a new chapter in the iconic franchise previously led by the late Leslie Nielsen. The reboot’s humor heavily relies on satirizing police culture, continuing the legacy of the previous installments. However, given the current socio-political climate, that couldn’t have been an easy task.

According to writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, they had to balance the satire since the societal view of law enforcement has drastically changed in the last thirty years. Therefore, the writers made a conscious choice not to deliver any messaging with the movie, and here is what they had to say about their approach to the Liam Neeson-led reboot.

The Naked Gun Reboot Writers Reveal Approach to Satirizing Police Culture

The Naked Gun is a reboot of the popular action comedy franchise of the same name, starring Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr.

The upcoming The Naked Gunremake aims to balance classic slapstick with modern satire, according to its writers. The original Naked Gun trilogy, starring Leslie Nielsen as clueless detective Frank Drebin, was known for satirizing police tropes with ridiculous gags and rapid-fire jokes. Now, more than three decades later, the franchise is returning with Liam Neeson in the lead.

While reimagining the absurd detective comedy for today's audiences, the creative team behind the reboot recognized the cultural shift around the police force, and says the new film will approach the topic through the same lens as the beloved original.

In an interview with Screen Rant, writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand discussed how the satire still works and why the film doesn't shy away from poking fun at law enforcement culture. Addressing how societal views of police have shifted since the original films, Mand admitted, “It is a very strange, hard time to be like,...

The upcoming The Naked Gunremake won't ignore O.J. Simpson's legacy, with its writers revealing how they approached the character of Nordberg. In the original trilogy, Simpson played the bumbling detective whose physical comedy became a staple of the films. But, in the decades since, Simpson's highly publicized trial and controversial reputation posed a major question about what should be done with his character in the reboot.

Starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, the upcomingreboot aims to balance classic slapstick with modern satire, and that includes addressing Nordberg's character with both care and nerve. The writers revealed that while they didn’t want to dwell on Simpson’s real-life controversies, they knew audiences would expect some acknowledgment.

In a recent interview with Screen Rant, writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand admitted the joke was intentionally held back before his passing in 2024, but now serves as a sharp, albeit brief, commentary.

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for the new film release “The Naked Gun,” produced by Seth McFarlane and picking up with the next generation of Police Squad, featuring the son of Frank Drebin portrayed by Liam Neeson. In theaters on August 1st.

Frank Drebin Jr. (Neeson) has taken his father’s bumbling role in Police Squad, a division of the Los Angeles Police Department. His partner is Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser), the son of original Frank’s old partner, and so on. It is discovered that a billionaire tech guy named Cane (Danny Huston) has developed a electronic plot device that alters a person’s mental state. Complicating matters is Beth (Pamela Anderson), a femme fatale whose interest in Cane is about revenge, and her interest in Frank is about love. Is this a case best left unsolved?

”The Naked Gun” is in theaters on August 1st.

Let's be honest -- when "The Naked Gun" was first announced, we all shook our heads and asked a simple question: why? After all, the original trilogy, starring Leslie Nielsen as the clueless detective Frank Drebin, features some of the best comedies of all time, and those should never be touched, right? Well, maybe it's time for us cynical, old naysayers to go into Akiva Schaffer, Dan Gregor, and Doug Mand's sequel/reboot (requel? seeboot?) with an open mind, as the early reviews indicate that the movie is a hoot.

"The Naked Gun" stars Liam Neeson as Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Nielsen's legendary Police Squad detective. Unfortunately for him (but good for us), the younger Drebin has also inherited his old man's more inept qualities, and his violent way of handling perpetrators gets him into a spot of bother with his superiors. However, it's still...

Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson united for a new take on The Naked Gun, the action comedy movie that's heading to theaters on Aug. 1. Ahead of the film's release, it managed to impress the critics with its early reviews.

As of this writing, the new version of The Naked Gun is holding a perfect score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. While the film could lose its rare perfect score as more reviews come in, it's fair to say that the reboot is already a major hit with critics. Stars Neeson and Anderson are not typically the stars of comedy films, but the two are getting a lot of praise for how well they pulled off The Naked Gun. The film is also getting a lot of credit for being consistently funny all the way through, following up one big laugh after another.

"Neeson is a delight and seems to be having...

Liam Neeson’s late-career hard pivot from every dad’s favorite grizzled thespian to every dad’s favorite grizzled action star may have seemingly come out of nowhere, but this new lane was one the Irish actor embodied so thoroughly that nobody really minded it; in fact, we all more or less embraced with open arms this new era of ass-kicking and name-taking between moments of fatherly bonding. After a while, though, there were only so many “Run All Night”s or “Cold Pursuit”s we could handle before we’d start to miss the time when films like “Silence” were closer to the norm than the outlier in Neeson’s oeuvre.

The man has always attested, however, that he’ll continue to crack his knuckles and throw his punches for as long as his body would allow him to, but with “The Naked Gun” (2025), Neeson seems to have applied...

Neeson plays the son of Leslie Nielsen’s Lt Frank Drebin, appearing opposite Pamela Anderson in this enjoyable, at times very bizarre, spoof of 80s LA action movies

Here is Liam Neeson doing a rumbly-menacing voice even sillier than the one he did in Taken – and he now presumably must decide whether, like Leslie Nielsen before him, he will pivot to spoof comedy full-time. To be fair, Neeson has more career capital to lose than Nielsen did. He deadpans it impeccably, but perhaps doesn’t quite have Nielsen’s eerie innocence. In any case, it doesn’t stop this reboot of the Naked Gun franchise from being a lot of fun: amiably ridiculous, refreshingly shallow, entirely pointless and guilelessly crass. It is a life-support system for some outrageous gags, including sensational riffs on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sex and the City, and one showstopping are-they-really-gonna-do-it reference to Oj Simpson,...

Over the past five years, seeing a straight-up comedy that puts big laughs first and foremost has become a rarity. Gone are the days when filmmakers like Judd Apatow and Adam McKay were given big summer blockbuster release dates for their star-studded comedies, and multiplex general audiences are far worse for it. There's nothing better than sharing a fit of laughter with a big group of people. While there are blockbusters that come with a fair share of jokes, whether it's something like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" or the video game-infused action of "Free Guy," rarely do we get to sit down in the theater for a movie that has the explicit goal of making us laugh.

Thankfully, "The Naked Gun" has the power to change that, as long as audiences give it a chance to tickle their funny bone. 

Directed by Akiva Shaffer (one-third of the "Saturday Night Live...

It takes a bold man to step into the shoes of Leslie Nielsen, former Hollywood matinee idol (see how heroic and gallant he is in 1956’s Forbidden Planet!) and late-in-life comedic genius. Thank God — or rather, thank the holy trinity of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker — for Nielsen’s reinvention as keeper of the big-screen, charismatic-idiot flame. Even within Airplane‘s cast of fellow actors previously known for their gravitas, Nielsen proved himself as a first-rate boob. His deadpan was deadly. Naturally, it was a no-brainer to cast...

Early on in the new version of “The Naked Gun,” there’s a moment that gives you that old “Naked Gun” feeling. Sgt. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), a veteran L.A. cop of unorthodox methods, has just surveyed the scene of a fatal car crash that may have involved foul play. It’s time for the wrecked car to be hauled away, so to accomplish that task they use a vehicle attached to what looks like a giant version of one of those mechanical claws in an arcade game. The claw lifts the car halfway up and then, at the crucial moment, drops it. The joke is that Drebin and his colleagues all let out a disappointed “Ohhhhhh!,” the way a million parents have when the claw guided by their 7-year-old drops the plushie toy it’s trying to hoist (as happens just about every time). In its patented absurdity,...

General audiences at multiplexes likely will not be able to tell that the dead-on spoof of a movie trailer that opens the new reboot of ’80s classic The Naked Gun is actually part of the film itself as it no doubt will have just followed 25 minutes of real trailers, but it is an inspired beginning as star Liam Neeson shows up to plead for the return of comedy to theaters, an endangered species he goes on to detail by name-checking numerous funny films of a distant past and encouraging moviegoers to support the comedy of their choice — if they can find it.

The sad thing is that it is not just a spoof. The style of Lol-, hit-the-wall-with-a-barrage-of-laugh-lines-for-85-minutes-straight comedy has become something of a rarity in theaters, where the sound of laughter can be contagious if experienced communally. Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler are relegated to streamers these days.

Say what you will about Akiva Schaffer’s latest film — and I’m about to say some very nice stuff — but one thing is for sure: “The Naked Gun” is funny. It’s very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very funny. Very.

And it damn well better be. The original “Naked Gun” movies, like “Police Squad!” (the short-lived TV series they spun out of), were high-powered machine guns that used gags for ammo. They took self-serious police dramas and roasted them on a high heat until they got thoroughly burned. That’s the trick with these gag movies. The best ones skewer a genre that typically has no sense of humor of its own. Shows about law and order have been earnest, shameful copaganda for about as long as television has existed. So turning those pompous, condescending shows — not to mention the countless pompous,...

Liam Neeson is Frank Drebin Jr in the brand new The Naked Gun. Sacrilege, then, or a surprise? Here’s our review.

I love the films of the late, great Carl Reiner as a rule, but 1993’s Fatal Instinct wasn’t one of his best. Riding on the coattails of the original The Naked Gun and the Hot Shots! films, it was one of a growing collection of spoof movies that misunderstood the ground rules. One: play it straight, and two: a visual reference to another film isn’t a joke. It’s just a visual reference to another film.

(See also: Epic Movie, Meet The Spartans, Date Movie et al.)

It’s no secret that the director of the original The Naked Gun, David Zucker, has thus hardly blessed this 2025 reboot with his best wishes, but I can’t help thinking he might be pleasantly surprised. As much as...

Akiva Schaffer’s The Naked Gun might be the riskiest attempt at a legacy sequel in recent memory. It attempts to resurrect not just a dormant franchise, but the cinematic spoof genre as a whole after it was beaten to death by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer in the mid-aughts. Schaffer has been almost single-handedly keeping the genre on life support since his 2007 feature directorial debut, Hot Rod. And while The Naked Gun isn’t an unmitigated success like Schaffer’s Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and Chip n’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers, it’s also a much purer, freewheeling spoof, with a lower barrier of entry that serves it well.

This isn’t a film that plays much inside baseball. One notable exception is a gag centered around the loss of nearly every major cast member from the original films, and Schaffer and co-screenwriters Doug Mand and Dan Gregor...

The Naked Gun has me asking, “What happened to kill the comedy film?” Tentpole, IP-driven franchises that sell well overseas have pushed the genre to the sidelines. Another issue is that comedy films often rely on star power. We haven’t had a breakout comedic lead in the vein of Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler in years.

The latter made the jump to streaming—Happy Gilmore 2 fans, rejoice! Melissa McCarthy once looked like the genre’s savior, but her husband’s heavy involvement in her projects arguably derailed her momentum. With no new marketable stars, comedy began blending into other genres—Deadpool & Wolverine, for example.

They say comedy evolves, but cancel culture and cultural shifts started to smother creative risk-taking. So, in a full-circle moment, studios returned to The Naked Gun—the fourth installment of the classic spoof franchise. And it’s the movie we didn’t know we needed.

The Naked Gun Early Reactions Out (Photo Credit – Instagram)

Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson starrer The Naked Gun is an action comedy set to be released this Friday. The early reactions to the film are doing the rounds on social media. Amid superhero and sci-fi films, this comedy film will be a breath of fresh air, and the film press is also impressed by this movie. Scroll below for the critics’ reactions on the social media platform X [formerly Twitter].

The movie has been directed by Akiva Schaffer, who co-wrote the script with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand. It acts as a legacy sequel to Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994), marking the fourth installment in The Naked Gun franchise. Liam Neeson leads the cast as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., joined by Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, and Danny Huston.

Early reviews of The Naked Gun on X [formerly Twitter]

Entertainment reporter Brandon Benitez said,...

Pamela Anderson is having a true renaissance with the upcoming The Naked Gun reboot opposite Liam Neeson. But before you watch the flick, Anderson’s Pamela, a Love Story is a worthy watch that is currently sitting at a remarkable 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Directed by Ryan White and co-produced by Anderson’s son Brandon Thomas Lee, the documentary strips away the headlines and gives Pamela full control of her story.

From her childhood in British Columbia to her stratospheric rise as a s*x symbol in the ’90s, the film blends never-before-seen home videos with Anderson’s own narration, bringing humanity and depth to a woman long caricatured by the media. What makes the film stand out is its refusal to sensationalize, offering a deeply personal and surprisingly vulnerable narrative that tells the true story of the Baywatch star.

For viewers unfamiliar with Anderson beyond the iconic red swimsuit or the many tabloid scandals,...

The movie that turned Liam Neeson into an action icon is coming back to Hulu. Taken is set to return to the streaming service at the top of next month.

Beginning August 1, Taken will be available to stream on Hulu. The 2008 movie proved to be a major turning point in Neeson's career, transforming him, at least in the eyes of the public, from a dramatic actor to an action star. In Taken, Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA operative who sets out to track down his teenage daughter Kim and her best friend Amanda after they are kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers while on vacation in France. Despite mixed reviews from critics, the action thriller was an unexpected hit with audiences, grossing over $225 million worldwide against a $25 million budget.

Taken was followed by two sequels, Taken 2 in 2012 and Taken 3 in 2014, as well as an NBC television series...