#ed-helms

In late 2013 it was announced that Ed Helms would be headlining a reboot of the Naked Gun series, but a year-and-a-half later it doesn’t sound like Frank Drebin’s reincarnation is any closer to becoming a reality.

“That’s a conversation that’s been happening, it’s kind of in the grinding gears of Hollywood,” Helms told us during a recent visit to Yahoo Studios, which you can watch above. Helms, of course, can currently be seen in another contemporary update of '80s comedy classicalism, Vacation, in which he takes over at the wheel as a grown-up Rusty Griswold.

As for if a new version of Naked Gun would have a similar tone to the spoofery so famously employed by the late Leslie Nielsen over the course of three comedies between 1988 and 1994, Helms hinted that the reboot would likely go in a new direction: “You have to make something that a contemporary audience is going to like,” he said. “We haven’t seen many of those slapstick movies in a while, so I’m not sure what the right angle is on it.” (In March, original Naked Gun director David Zucker told us the updated version would be markedly different, saying, “They don’t want to do that style of spoof that I do.”)

Among other topics discussed during our 'Things We’ve Always Wondered’ Q&A, Helms also said that, yes, he has gotten a lot more free drinks since starring in the wildly popular Hangover movies (though he’s also feared for his safety), and that he and his castmates we greeted like heroes (or at least, The Beatles) when visiting Scranton, Pennsylvania, the town his beloved sitcom The Office took place in.

Vacation is now in theaters. Watch Helms talk about inheriting the franchise from his co-star Chevy Chase: