Netflix is bringing back the comedy that started it all as they’re bringing The Naked Gun back to the big screen with the Netflix Is a Joke Fest.

Having first launched in 2002, the biennial comedy festival is largely based out of Los Angeles, with the streamer bringing together a variety of comedians for everything from new stand-up shows to live podcast recordings, roast battles, and table reads. The event has since grown to also include drag shows, trivia shows and musical performances, with the 2026 roster featuring everyone from two-time Emmy winner Bob Odenkirk to The Righteous Gemstones‘ Edi Patterson, View Askewniverse creator Kevin Smith and Lizzo, among over 300 others.

Among said list is David Zucker, one of the filmmaking trio of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, the early kings of the spoof comedy genre. For 2026’s Netflix Is a Joke festival, which is running from May 4-10, he and the streamer are bringing 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! to the big screen for a special theatrical screening at The Egyptian Theater, with Zucker also partaking in a live Q&A after the film’s screening.

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Co-written by Zucker with his Z-A-Z partners and frequent collaborator Pat Proft, The Naked Gun served as a continuation of the comedy series Police Squad!, centered on Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, a Lieutenant Detective in Los Angeles who is simultaneously inept-yet-capable. The first film followed Frank as he attempted to stop a heroin operation run by a corrupt business mogul, with the help of his friends and Police Squad cohorts, George Kennedy’s Captain Ed Hocken and O.J. Simpson’s Detective Nordberg.

In anticipation of his Netflix Is a Joke attendance, ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns interviewed David Zucker to discuss the special Naked Gun screening. The filmmaker began by laughing as he joked that it was a “long tortured road” to join the festival, before recalling it was as simple as the streamer’s event planning team reached out to him, and he agreed to the idea, praising them as being “really good people doing this thing.”

He went on to explain that part of the movie’s renewed interest came after Variety did a list of the 100 Best Comedy Movies of All Time, with his original Naked Gun — the one “done by the right people who actually know what they’re doing” — landing the No. 1 spot on the chart:

David Zucker: So, Netflix is a Joke called me, and they wanted to do this. So I’m looking forward to it. I won’t watch the movie because I’ve seen it enough times. I don’t have to see the movie again. People can just see it and tell me how great it is and how great the directing was.

In looking to the Q&A he’s doing after the film’s screening, Zucker did chuckle as he acknowledged that the one thing he’s dreading is the audience “ask[ing] me about the recent Naked Gun” led by Liam Neeson as Drebin’s son, which the filmmaker has been candid in his disappointment with the legacy sequel. He did conclude as he humorously assured that “I’ll try to appear less angry than I was a year ago” should any audience member bring the new movie up.

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ScreenRant: You have so many great movies to your name, so many quotable movies, as well. What’s the one that people always want to come up and talk to you the most about?

David Zucker: Well, I forget the name, but it had an automatic pilot in it. [Raises coffee mug with Otto Pilot on it] Oh yeah, Airplane! is the one. [Chuckles] And then after that, it’s The Naked Gun. Scary Movie 3 is another one that people always ask me about. And, of course, BASEketball and Top Secret!. So, everybody has a favorite. My son, who’s now 26, his favorite is BASEketball.

ScreenRant: Beyond The Star of Malta, what else do you have on the horizon?

David Zucker: I’m producing a movie for Amazon Germany, and it is not a spoof at all. They had the idea, they wanted to do what they called a German Gun, but I don’t want to go back and do that again no matter what. I want to do movies, but I don’t have to. I’m very fortunate I can do what I want now. So I convinced them that we could do more or less a rom-com farce, but in my style. And sure enough, we came up with a great script, and they’re reading it over this weekend. So you’re getting this news hot off the presses, an exclusive, although you don’t deserve it. [Chuckles] And then I think they’re going to start probably start shooting in Munich in late September, and then do the rest of it months later because we’re going to actually shoot during that week or two of Oktoberfest to get that footage. And now the challenge is to find a director.

ScreenRant: Well, you have worked with so many great directors over the years; I have a good feeling you’ll find someone good to work with.

David Zucker: Yeah, I’ve always picked right, but it needs to be somebody that I’ve trained already. So I have an idea of a few directors who may fill the bill because you can’t just come in and do this kind of thing without knowing the rules. Jim and Jerry and I evolved over 40 years; 15 rules of our comedy don’t apply to anyone else. But if you’re doing this kind of spoof, you need to — most of these things are what not to do. And because of that, I’m teaching this online course in Spoof Comedy called MasterCrash; you can go to mastercrash.com for very low cost entry. Then we try to upsell everybody so that we can make more money. But initially you can get a lot of good stuff for almost nothing. I also have interactions with students online so I can answer their questions while I’m there.

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