THE NAKED GUN Director Akiva Schaffer Nearly Quit to Keep the Movie’s Silliest Scene
When it comes to The Naked Gun reboot, there’s one scene that’s one of the weirdest and funniest in the entire movie, and it almost didn’t make the cut.
Director and co-writer Akiva Schaffer revealed that the now fan-favorite snowman montage was a major point of contention during production. He had to go to extreme lengths to keep it in, even threatening to walk away from the project.
The scene features Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. and Pamela Anderson as Beth heading off to a snowy cabin getaway, where they use a spellbook to bring a snowman to life. It plays out in an absurd '80s-style love montage that eventually spirals into full-on horror territory, drawing inspiration from the cult flick Jack Frost (1998). It’s bizarre, it’s unexpected, and it’s absolutely hilarious.
But not everyone saw it that way at first.
“It was polarizing in script-reads,” Schaffer shared on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “People I really respect, like Andy Samberg, when he read it for me, he was like, ‘Snowman's the best. Do not let them cut it,’ knowing it would be cuttable. It makes sense once you see the movie, but at one point I did have to threaten to quit.”
Schaffer wasn’t blind to the risk. He made sure the scene could be removed without breaking the story’s structure, and even considered bringing the snowman back for a later gag that never got filmed. But once audiences saw it, the reaction made everything worth it.
From the very first test screenings, Schaffer said, “it was the number one scene in the movie.”
As for the people who pushed back, they came around in a big way. “The people that really fought me on it after ate a lot of crow without me asking. I tried to let them off the hook easy, and go, ‘That's fine,’ but they were like, ‘No, dude, we were wrong’,” he said.
The snowman scene is a goofy throwback to the classic love montage from the 1988 original with Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley. It’s a deliberate choice by Schaffer and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand to make sure The Naked Gun reboot stands on its own.
“No offense to other reboots and redos and legacy sequels out there, but a lot of them are so stuck on re-doing the stuff that the original did,” Schaffer said.
“You watch them and are delighted, but it's like empty calories, and when it's done, you barely remember that you saw it because, my theory at least, is they're not really a new movie. They’re fan fiction of the old movie.”
Schaffer was swinging for something original within the chaos, and that wild snowman scene proves it paid off.
Source: Filmmaker Toolkit podcast