We Almost Got a ‘Naked Gun’ Video Game Starring Leslie Nielsen, Until O.J. Ruined It

Following the death of Jim Abrahams, there’s been a lot of chatter online about a movie he co-wrote: The Naked Gun. Fans have been sharing their favorite scenes on social media, such as the prolonged bribery sequence featuring Lt. Frank Drebin and a shady dockworker. 

But wouldn’t these scenes be more fun if you got to control Frank Drebin yourself?

Apparently we came surprisingly close to getting a Naked Gun tie-in video game. As reported by retro gaming site Time Extension, British game developer Perfect Entertainment obtained the rights to The Naked Gun franchise decades ago, and were planning on releasing a game based on the classic comedy in late 1997.

The company’s co-founder, Gregg Barnett, recently revealed that the game would have been a “2D point-and-click adventure” with a new storyline that incorporated the mind-control technology used by the villainous Vincent Ludwig to try and bump off the Queen in the first movie.

Barnett speaks highly of the scrapped project, noting that it was his “best game design” because he “went crazy on parodying films from that particular era.” It would have begun with a 3D opening sequence featuring a police car traveling through absurd scenarios, just like in the opening credits of each movie. But in the game, the car would be “causing chaos” by crashing through other video games such as Super Mario Bros. and Doom.

The working titles for the game included “Naked Gun: 3½ with 5¼ scratched out” and Naked Gun Forever Hold Your Piece, which would have been paired with artwork depicting Leslie Nielsen “dressed up in a bridal veil with a gun.”

The game format would have allowed for even more surreal scenarios. In one sequence, Frank Drebin would accidentally kill “the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti and the first alien contact” without even noticing. As for the gameplay itself, an attempt was made to incorporate humor; one “puzzle” involved Frank being blindfolded and beaten up by the villain’s henchman, only to be beaten up again at police headquarters with no blindfold on, to help piece together who kidnapped him. 

Okay, it wasn’t exactly Myst.

So why didn’t the game get made? This guy:

While the Naked Gun film series wrapped up before O.J. Simpson’s arrest and murder trial (by just a few months) the game wasn’t so lucky. "O.J. was one of the three main actors in the film, so the Naked Gun name sort of went a bit dodgy at that point,” Barnett recalled. “The O.J. trial was a big thing in America, and that just killed the whole thing.”

We did eventually get a Naked Gun video game, though. The Naked Gun: I.C.U.P. was released for iOS and Android devices in 2012, and followed the adventures of Frank Drebin Jr. who seemingly spends his days randomly murdering birds.

Weirdly enough, the only character from the movies to appear in this game was Nordberg, the character played by O.J. Simpson!