The Naked Gun and Airplane! Director Developing New Spoof Movie

David Zucker, who ushered in a generation of imitators with his wildly successful spoof movie Airplane! and then topped himself years later with The Naked Gun, is hoping to do it again. The filmmaker is reportedly developing a new project that would be a spoof of film noir tropes, to be co-written by Police Academy writer Pat Proft and another frequent Zucker collaborator, writer/actor Michael McManus. Titled Star of Malta, the new movie sounds like it has the potential to veer into a little bit darker territory, since it supposedly centers on a character who accidentally kills someone, goes to jail, and then gets out and ends up accidentally killing lots more people along the way.

The movie will be produced by Rainmaker Films, the outfit behind Dallas Buyers Club and the upcoming Shailene Woodley vehicle Misanthrope. There is no word yet on who might star in Star of Malta. 

Here’s the official synopsis, per The Hollywood Reporter, who first reported the news: “Set in late-1940s America, Malta follows prizefighter Joe Medina, newly released from prison for killing his opponent in the ring, as he pursues his love, Harriet Evans, to Hollywood. Hitchhiking west, he accidentally gains possession of a highly sought-after but cursed gemstone, known as The Star of Malta, and proceeds on an accidental murder spree, leaving a trail of people he never intended to kill.”

Zucker and his brother Jerry broke into Hollywood in 1977 with Kentucky Fried Movie, which was little more than a feature-length and R-rated episode of a sketch show, but it showed off what they could do. Three years later, they had written Airplane!, which became one of the most iconic comedies of the ’80s and is still regularly quoted by movie fans 40 years later.

On the heels of that success, the Zuckers would write the TV series Police Squad! The series was almost immediately cancelled, but would pay dividends down the line when the concept and characters were revived a decade later in The Naked Gun. That time around, as a movie rather than a TV show, it proved popular enough to earn two sequels.

In the time since The Naked Gun movies, the Zuckers have had limited success. Jerry directed the hit Ghost in 1990 and the ambitious Rat Race in 2003, but hasn’t directed a movie since, serving as a producer only on a handful of things in that time. David has remained more active as a writer, producer, and director, but to limited success, working on movies like My Boss’s Daughter, H.U.D., and the third through fifth installments of the Scary Movie franchise. The Scary Movie brand actually launched the careers of the Zucker Brothers’ presumptive heirs to the spoof-movie throne, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. That duo would effectively kill the box office potential of spoof movies with increasingly unpopular titles like Superhero Movie, Date Movie, and Meet the Spartans. 

Do you think David Zucker can make a comedy that connects with modern audiences? Are you excited for Star of Malta? Let us know in the comments below, or hit up @russburlingame on Twitter if you can remember what YouTuber it was who recently did a really good video on this topic.