In a phony public service announcement that ran in theaters before certain movies, Liam Neeson, star of the new “The Naked Gun,” addressed a concern that he cares deeply about: the plight of big screen comedies.
In a tone not dissimilar from Sarah McLachlan pleading for donations for abandoned animals, Neeson gravely said, “Every passing year, more comedies go unmade, unseen and unquoted.” Over a montage of clips from successful Paramount comedies (among them: “Tommy Boy,” “Clueless” and “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”), Neeson continued: “And for the price of one movie ticket, you can help rescue a comedy and in the process share a smile, a laugh and even the occasional groan with the people in your very own community. Right now there’s a comedy movie that needs you. Please, buy a ticket right now.”
The PSA was a joke, of course. But the dilemma is very real.
Over the course of the past few years, the big screen studio comedy has been relegated almost exclusively to streaming platforms. Earlier this year we’ve already had comedies that, in years past, would have been huge theatrical events – Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell’s very first team-up, for “You’re Cordially Invited,” directed by Nicholas Stoller, the filmmaker behind theatrical hits “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Five-Year Engagement,” arrived exclusively to Prime Video. And just last week, “Happy Gilmore 2,” a sequel to the 1996 Adam Sandler blockbuster, debuted on Netflix to massive numbers.
If it’s one thing that “The Naked Gun” and its director and co-writer Akiva Schaffer are serious about, it’s ushering in a new era of theatrically released comedies.
“I don’t have real global thoughts about the state of the industry,” Schaffer told TheWrap when asked about the state of big studio comedies in theaters. “But personally, I’m attracted to challenges, and this certainly was one.”
And he knows the score.
“Comedy is rarely in theaters and almost never without an asterisk of a different genre with it,” Schaffer said. “It’s dead in its main genre and its niche genre. And so there are 100 reasons not to do it. And I, somewhere, relished that, even though it’s torturing myself.”
As comedian Paul Scheer put it, “Comedies are always about the underdog and right now comedy is an underdog in this business.”
A recent history of big screen laughs
It wasn’t that long ago that comedies were big business in Hollywood.
2005’s “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” directed by Judd Apatow and written by Apatow and star Steve Carell, proved that there was room for raunchy, R-rated comedies for adults. It was a continuation and evolution of a tradition that started with 1999’s “American Pie,” which resurrected the “Porky’s” formula of sex comedies for a new generation, making $235 million on an $11 million budget and establishing a genuine franchise for studio Universal Pictures.
“The 40-Year-Old Virgin” maintained the irreverence but was more squarely focused on an older demographic. It made $177.4 million on a budget of just $26 million and inspired a wave of comedies, either directly connected to the film (via producer Apatow and his vast comedy empire) or emboldened by its success.
This era of studio comedy peaked, perhaps, with 2009’s “The Hangover,” which made almost $470 million on a budget of $35 million. Two sequels followed. The first, in 2011, had a larger budget ($80 million) but also grossed more than the first ($586.8 million) but by the third movie, in 2013, it was starting to wane – “The Hangover Part III” cost substantially more (over $100 million) and grossed less than the first film ($362 million).
Alan Siegel, who writes about comedy for The Ringer and whose book about “The Simpsons” (“Stupid TV, Be More Funny”) was just published by Grand Central Publishing last month, said that he colloquially asks comedians and other people in the industry when the last time they laughed – like really laughed – in a movie theater was and they often cite “Bridesmaids,” another Apatow production. It was released in 2011.
“There have been funny movies since then. It just feels like there has been a long time since a comedy has been in the collective consciousness in the way that a big action franchise has,” Siegel said.
Recent big screen attempts at mainstream comedy, like 2022’s “Bros,” directed by Stoller, produced by Apatow and distributed by Universal, have failed at the box office, with just $14.8 million on a budget of $22 million despite a robust marketing campaign and a splashy premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Ditto 2023’s “Strays,” an extremely R-rated dog comedy (also from Universal), which cost $46 million to produce and only made $36 million despite starring Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx and being produced by “21 Jump Street” filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
And it’s not just original comedies that can’t seem to hit in theaters. It says something that the sequels to two giant Eddie Murphy hits – “Coming to America” and “Beverly Hills Cop” — went straight-to-streaming (Prime Video and Netflix, respectfully). Siegel cited “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” which Paramount sold to Netflix, as a movie that “would have made a few hundred million dollars if it had been released theatrically.” We’ll never know.
There are outliers, for sure. “Girls Trip” in 2017 made $140.9 million on a budget of just $19 million (it too was released by Universal) but a sequel has yet to materialize. And earlier this year, Sony’s “One of Them Days,” starring Keke Palmer and SZA made $52 million against a budget of $14 million, and a sequel for that one is in the works. But these are exceptions.
Now people are getting their jokes in Marvel movies or on streaming. By the time “Shrek 5” comes out next year, it will be the first theatrical Eddie Murphy movie in 10 years. Sandler has been in a pact with Netflix since 2015, and the only theatrical releases on his resume since then have been a “Hotel Transylvania” sequel and “Uncut Gems.”
“Part of the reason I think is that people who can get these films greenlit don’t feel confident on telling you what is funny,” Scheer said. “Sure, you give your notes on a script, structure and character but comedies ask you to put your sense of humor out there. It’s the most dangerous thing because comedy is subjective.”
Obviously, the 2020 pandemic put all comedies at home. In the same way that mid-budget dramas or thrillers have been virtually extinct on the big screen since COVID, so too have comedies been maintained on the small screen. Apatow’s last movie as a director, 2022’s “The Bubble,” arrived on Netflix.
The hope is that “The Naked Gun” will change all of that.
“I think it shows how starved we are for them that one splashy release, which was very, very funny, got people this excited about it,” Siegel said about “The Naked Gun.” “My question is: is this something pop culture writers like us love or is this something that the public has an appetite for?”
From the Files of Police Squad!
It might be telling that this new “Naked Gun” began development around 2009. At the time it was still envisioned as a vehicle for Leslie Nielsen. But by 2013 it was announced that Ed Helms had been cast, taking over the role that Nielsen originated. (Nielsen died in 2010 at the age of 84.) The project got a fresh start in 2022 with Neeson signing on.
The new film is a sequel to the original “Naked Gun,” released in 1988, which was created by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker aka ZAZ, the team behind “Airplane.” It was based on “Police Squad!,” a short-lived comedy that aired for six whole episodes on ABC in 1982.
The first film was a hit, grossing $152.4 million in 1988 on a budget of $14.5 million. The sequel, 1991’s “The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear,” did even better, with $192 million grossed from a budget of $23 million. Additionally, reruns of “Police Squad!” started airing on Comedy Central, the all-comedy cable channel owned by Paramount’s parent company, that launched the same year. “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult,” followed in 1994. By that time the team had been disbanded; David Zucker was the only one to return. It still made money — $132 million on a budget of $30 million.
When Schaffer signed on to make a new “Naked Gun” movie, he didn’t look at any previous attempts. He and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who had worked with Schaffer on 2022’s “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers,” instead forged their own path. Schaffer remembered meeting with Paramount and Fuzzy Door, Seth MacFarlane’s company who would be producing the new film.
“If you want to give this to me, this is the version I see making,” Schaffer said. Some of his ideas included Neeson playing it, more or less, like his last decade or so of action movies and fashioning something that was a cut above recent legacy sequels and reboots that might be highly profitable but rarely break new ground.
“I was watching all the reboots and stuff that everyone does, enjoying them like everyone does, but noticing how forgettable they end up being, how disposable. And I’m really hoping this one doesn’t feel that way,” Schaffer said. Instead of stuffing it with fan service (besides a single, very brief, cameo), he sought to “honor, respect and carry the spirits of the original without repeating anything, as much as I could.”
Instead of interpolating dusty old cop shows, the new movie combines elements of more modern thrillers and movies like “Mission: Impossible – Fallout.”
He wanted the movie to look “like Tony Scott in 1990,” full of slick camerawork (courtesy of cinematographer Brandon Trost) and exaggerated angles. And he wanted to make sure that Neeson was not trying to inhabit the original Frank Drebin. “We’re not trying to erase Leslie Nielsen,” Schaffer said. “And Liam is so different than Leslie Nielsen. He can’t try to be him.”
In an early scene in the new “Naked Gun” that gets a big laugh, when Neeson’s Drebin Jr. visits a memorial to his father, he says, “I want to be just like you but, at the same time, completely different and original.”
There were some things that Schaffer wanted to maintain. After a sizzle reel played at CinemaCon earlier this year with more explicit violence, Schaffer decided to pull it back. He stuck with the PG-13 rating. Schaffer wondered, “How cool it would be if everyone’s laughing for a whole movie and there’s no cursing?” The violence in the scene screened at CinemaCon was, like much of the movie, before finding the right calibration.
Running time was also something Schaffer wanted to keep in mind. The first two movies are 85 minutes and run like a Swiss watch. He wanted his “Naked Gun” to be exactly the same length. “I was like, ‘That’s our goal,’” Schaffer said. Hitting that goal (and they did, the new film runs exactly 85 minutes) meant getting rid of a lot of material – he said that there would occasionally be 20 different versions of scenes or jokes that the production would try out. Knowing how much he would cut also helped the actors play on set.
“I got everybody to trust me on set. Maybe they would read a joke and go, ‘Is that good?’ I’m like, ‘We have a 115-page script, plus I’ve got 100 pages of alts that we’ll do and the movie’s going to be 85 minutes, I promise. If it isn’t working, I don’t need to leave it in,’” Schaffer said. “I could give everybody the freedom that their ideas are heard, just knowing that no matter what this thing is, it’s getting trimmed.”
Above all, Schaffer just wanted to make people laugh.
“A movie like ‘Naked Gun’ appeals to all in the sense that it’s not trying to be smarter than you nor is it reinventing the wheel. I can really hear the note, Let’s remake ‘Police Squad’ but let’s ground it and make it grittier,” Scheer said. “’Naked Gun’ is about making you laugh. We don’t need to add a layer of logic, subtext or backstory. It’s just jokes and if you don’t like one, wait 10 seconds for five new ones.”
A possible resurrection
But could “The Naked Gun” signal a return of the studio comedy to theaters?
For Schaffer, that was one of a handful of hurdles they were trying to overcome. One, he’s remaking or attempting to update “a beloved franchise that I love that has no room for improvement.” Two, he’s attempting to work inside a “a dead genre, spoof comedy.” And, of course, there’s the whole theatrical component.
The fact that “Naked Gun” is coming out in theaters, Schaffer said, means that “it would be judged really harshly.” But he’s undeterred. “It’s my favorite genre from when I discovered it for myself, when my parents brought me ‘Top Secret,’ that was the first one I ever saw,” Schaffer said. Finding Mel Brooks and Monty Python and “The Simpsons” were huge for him. “I can’t think of anything that gave me more joy than comedies that were willing to get surreal a little bit. I think it’s too interesting an opportunity to pass up,” Schaffer said, before adding, “Even though the bullseye was teeny.”
When I brought up the fact that an entire genre might be riding on his shoulders, Schaffer shrugged it off.
“It’s kind of like whenever there’s a female-led movie and they go, ‘Okay if this one works, I guess women can lead movies.’ And then ‘Bridesmaids’ comes out and it’s the biggest movie. And they’re like, ‘We did it.’ And then it goes away and then ‘Girls Trip’ comes out and they’re like, ‘Is this going to be the one to make it so that women can all make a movie?’ And it’s the biggest hit,” Schaffer said. “And then ‘Barbie’ comes out and they’re like, ‘I guess women can make movies.’ And you’re like, ‘Have you noticed that there’s a lot of them and they are huge hits?’ But each time it’s as if it was the first time again. If this one works does it actually mean anything for anything?”
We were talking after the reviews had come out, which were almost unanimously positive (New York Magazine’s Bilge Ebiri said of seeing it with a big audience, “It might just heal you. It might just heal the world”) followed by a peerless, months-long marketing campaign that included everything from billboards to sponsored urinal cakes. “Well, they can’t blame that part now,” Schaffer said of the glowing reviews. Usually these types of movies, historically got bad reviews. But not his.
“I’ll be curious if people will go see it,” Schaffer said, sounding genuinely inquisitive.
Schaffer has been here before – his 2016 film “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” was produced by Apatow and meant as the feature debut of The Lonely Island, the comedy group that he formed with Jorma Taccone (who also directed “Popstar”) and Andy Samberg (who starred). The three wrote the movie together and it was poised to be a big summer hit, released by Universal. It cost $20 million and made only $9.7 million. It has since grown into a cultish hit. But at the time it was yet another box office comedy disappointment. The point is: Schaffer knows it could go either way.
“The one truth in Hollywood is give people what they want. The studios are understandably shameless. If something is successful, they’re going to try and copy it over and over,” said Siegel. “The only reason ‘The Naked Gun’ was made is because it’s a franchise. Each one was profitable. That emboldened Paramount to reboot this. It sounds so simple but for people making comedy, they shrug or laugh or say, ‘That’s what it takes now.’ Hopefully if this is a success, studios will greenlight comedies.”
Scheer added: “I hope ‘Naked Gun’ marks a return to making mid budget comedies that we can see in theaters. Laughing with a crowd is the thing that made me want to do what I do. I think this is why comedy touring is thriving. People want to laugh with others. Comedy is cheap and easily refillable. When you look back to the ’80s and ’90s there were hits and misses but when they hit they hit big and when they missed we enjoyed them anyway.”
Maybe the rise and fall of the tides, the constant spinning of the cosmos and the changeover in executive leadership at major film studios will all contribute to comedies returning to the big screen. Or, as Lord and Miller said: “Everything is cyclical. At one point no one thought superhero movies could work.”
If “The Naked Gun” is a hit, at least we can expect more sequels.
“I know everybody would be open to it,” said Schaffer. Not that he wants to jinx anything.
“I feel like the moment I would start writing jokes, it would for sure not be happening. My brain is a blank slate, which is unfortunate, because if they ever did ask for it, the main thing they want is how fast you can do it. I’d be wise if I thought there was even a possibility, but I’ve been burned before, so I’m just cruising.”
