The comedy movie is in trouble folks, and Liam Neeson is calling on all of us to do something about it. The good news is that an opportunity is right in front of us — buying a movie ticket for The Naked Gun, starring Neeson.
In its latest bit of clever marketing, The Naked Gun has released a faux PSA about the dire need to save comedies. Featuring slow-mo clips of classic comedies (all of which just happen to be either streaming on Paramount Plus or are titles that Paramount Pictures has the rights to) played over a slow piano tune, we’re told that “Every single hour in Hollywood a comedy script is rejected” and that last year fewer comedies came out than ever before (you’ll have to give us some time to fact check those stats). The last bit of text warns that soon, if the trend continues, no new comedies could come out.
Then it’s Neeson’s turn to make the case. He says more and more comedies go unmade, unseen and unquoted every year. But good news, you can help reverse those trends for the price of one movie ticket. Using the URL www.savecomedy.org you can do just that to ensure future generations can enjoy watching a comedy in a movie theater.
Watch the PSA right here:
While this is definitely The Naked Gun having some fun with the idea of a PSA, there is some truth to comedy’s struggles at the box office and how that has impacted them being made.
If we’re looking at the kind of PG-13/R-rated comedies like Anchorman, The Lost City and Tropic Thunder that the PSA features clips of, they’re not performing as well as they used to. The highest-grossing PG-13/R-rated comedy in 2025 is One of Them Days, which just made over $50 million at the box office earlier this year. And while there have been the occasional big comedy hits in the last few years, most have been sequels or related to high-valued IP (FYI, not counting Marvel movies as those are superhero movies first and foremost).
The last time that more than two PG-13 or R-rated comedies made the top 10 at the year-end box office was 2005, when Wedding Crashers, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Hitch all achieved the feat.
So, will you help comedies get back on their feet and go see The Naked Gun, starring Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder and Danny Huston, in movie theaters?
All jokes aside, The Naked Gun releases exclusively in movie theaters worldwide on August 1.
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