EXCLUSIVE: Paramount has rounded out the cast for its untitled Naked Gun reboot with four additions: Liza Koshy (Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts), current WWE Undisputed Champion Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder (Rustin) and Busta Rhymes.
No word on the roles they’re playing, but we’re told Rhodes will only be making a cameo. As previously announced, Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand and Danny Huston will also star. Neeson plays Detective Frank Drebin, with Hauser as his partner Ed. Roles for Anderson and Huston haven’t yet emerged, though it’s understood that Durand will be playing the film’s villain.
Akiva Schaffer is directing and exec producing the comedy, slated for release on July 18, 2025. Dan Gregor and Doug Mand wrote the draft script along with Schaffer. Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins are producing via Fuzzy Door, with Daniel M. Stillman also serving as EP.
Known for their absurd scenarios and slapstick humor, past Naked Gun films centered on the misadventures of Drebin, the clueless and bumbling police detective played by Leslie Nielsen, who also starred in Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker’s short-lived series Police Squad!. Grossing over $216M across three films, the film franchise launched with 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, with sequels The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear and Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult following in 1991 and 1994, respectively.
Most recently seen in titles like Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Cat Person and Players, Koshy will next be seen in Netflix’s Family Affair with Nicole Kidman, Joey King and Zac Efron, as well as Sony’s My Ex-Friend’s Wedding opposite Amanda Seyfried, Ariana DeBose and more. Currently, she also hosts Roku’s new home renovation series Empty Nest Refresh from Velvet Hammer Media.
A professional wrestler nicknamed “The American Nightmare,” Rhodes joined the WWE in 2022, prior to that appearing as part of All Elite Wrestling for several years. In film and TV, he’s perhaps best known for an arc on The CW’s Arrow.
Known for starring in FX’s The Shield and the Avatar films, Pounder’s recent credits include 3 Body Problem, Rustin, Avatar: The Way of Water, and NCIS: New Orleans, which she starred in for 155 episodes. Among her other upcoming projects is the Prime Video series Anansi Boys.
An 11x Grammy-nominated rapper, Rhymes has appeared in films like Halloween: Resurrection, Higher Learning, Narc and Finding Forrester, along with such series as Fresh Off the Boat, Master of None and Chappelle’s Show.
Koshy is repped by CAA and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller; Rhodes by Prototype Talent Agency, WME, and Feig Finkel; Pounder by Mitchell K. Stubbs & Associates; and Rhymes by UTA.
