Scary Movie 3 director David Zucker weighs in on the backlash he faced from the Wayans Brothers

But when Scary Movie 3 came around, the Wayans were nowhere to be found. Instead, at the helm was director David Zucker, best known for Airplane! and the original Naked Gun movies. Zucker directed the third and fourth films in the series and wrote them with Naked Gun collaborator Pat Proft (the duo also wrote Scary Movie 5, which was directed by Malcolm D. Lee). Now the Wayans are back producing and starring in the sixth film (which is just named Scary Movie).

Supposedly, there was some behind-the-scenes resentment about that original regime change over to Zucker, which is one of the things we covered when Polygon sat down with Zucker via Zoom. Along with that, we discussed his new noir parody Star of Malta, the comedy course he’s teaching, and why he still can’t quite get over his dislike for The Naked Gun reboot.

Polygon: To get started, I would love to talk about what Star of Malta is and what got you excited about it.

David Zucker: Well, Pat Proft, Mike McManus and I have been very infatuated for many years with film noir. We wanted to do something, and we came upon this movie called Detour, a classic noir from 1945 [and we made a spoof out of it]. We’re doing it in black-and-white as if it were filmed in 1945. It’s really the best story I’ve ever done, including Airplane!.

I like to do whatever is original. That’s what animates me. That’s why I didn’t want to do another Naked Gun set in an LA cop station. I don’t know if you know about that, [but] Pat, Mike, and I wrote a whole script. It was The Naked Gun, but not any of the same characters, set in the world of international espionage. And Paramount went with Seth MacFarlane, [who] tried to do a copy of Naked Gun, and that’s death to comedy.

Back in the day when it was the four of you writing — you, your brother, Pat, and Jim — what was your process?

We would watch old movies. So for Airplane!, we watched an old movie called Zero Hour, which was a 1957 black-and-white noir. We just copied the plot and we put in the jokes. We also thought of other things like all the flashbacks, the disco scene, the hospital scene, and the beach scene. We went and grabbed other movies to spoof. That was our process. We would get there in the morning and have coffee and just sit down and watch old movies. [It was] the same thing that I did with Pat and Mike on Star of Malta. We probably watched 20 noir titles and used about eight, nine, or 10 of them and, in some cases, took entire scenes and entire characters from these other movies.

You’re teaching a class now called “Master Crash.” Can you talk about that?

I decided to do it after I realized people were trying to do this and not knowing how to do it, even though they’re skilled and experienced professionals. Like all the people who did Naked Gun 4 [2025] were good at what they were doing in life and in their occupations as filmmakers, but they didn’t know how to do spoof. They just had no clue how to do it. I was pretty outraged by the whole situation, that some big producer had come in and hired young writers. They think young is the way to do it, and they don’t have a clue about how to do it.

Jerry and Jim and I and Pat, over 40 years, evolved a series of rules: the 15 rules of comedy. That’s in our book, Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! We had these rules and I still use them and I’m teaching that in my course. The people who did Naked Gun 4 probably would’ve done well to take the course.

Image: Dimension/Everett Collection

There’s a new Scary Movie coming out. Can we talk about how you got involved in that franchise?

I was about to do a Rob Schneider movie and I really didn’t want to do that movie. Rob Schneider was fine, but I didn’t want to do it. Then Bob Weinstein called and he had tried to make a deal with the Wayans Brothers to do Scary Movie 3. They had an idea for it, but, typical Hollywood, they wanted too much money and Dimension, the studio, didn’t want to pay it, so they couldn’t make a deal.

That’s fair. It’s fair that the Wayans walked away from it and it’s fair that the studio didn’t want to pay it. This happens all the time in Hollywood.

That’s when Bob called me. He said, “Do you want to direct Scary Movie 3?” I said, “Yeah, send me the script.” There was no script, so I wrote the script with Pat Proft and Craig Mazin. Those two guys were brilliant, and it’s one of my three favorite movies that I’ve ever done.

Image: Dimension/Everett Collection

But there’s been some stuff in the press. I guess Marlon Wayans was not happy with it. I think he thought it was stolen from him, but I don’t know why they would be mad. He also said that it wasn’t any good, and obviously he can think that, but at the box office, it was a huge hit. And Scary Movie 4 also made a lot of money.

One of the things Marlon Wayans said was, “You can’t do the Wayans.” And all I can say is, I agree with them, you can’t. That’s why we didn’t do it R-rated. We didn’t do the gross-out stuff that they do, which is fine. I think they’re really good. They’re really funny, good at it, but I wanted to do it PG-13.

I’m very proud of Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4. Now Paramount has acquired the rights from what used to be Dimension and Miramax, so they’re doing Scary Movie 6 and, to their credit, they’re going to the original creators of the franchise, the Wayans, which is the way it should be. They should always go to them first. I’m rooting for them and I hope the movie’s a success because I’m for anything that’ll bring movies back to the theaters.

Image: Dimension/Everett Collection

The last thing I wanted to ask you about was The Naked Gun reboot. I was going to ask you if your feelings on it have softened at all, but I think the answer is ‘no,’ right?

No, it’s totally outrageous that Paramount gave it to Seth MacFarlane. I mean, Seth MacFarlane is worth billions probably because he has that great cartoon show, Family Guy and he’s got hit movies, Ted. But when you get to have that kind of success, you just think you can do anything.

Seth MacFarlane is 10 times more successful than I am, but it doesn’t mean you can do this. I often think that I have an idea for a good sitcom and people have suggested, “You ought to do a sitcom.” And I start thinking, “Yeah, maybe this would be a good idea.” But then I watch an episode of Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm and I can’t do it as well as those guys. They’re geniuses at what that is. So what I’m saying is, maybe it’s good to stay in your lane.

Image: Paramount/Everett Collection

Were you ever able to bring yourself to watch it or is it just too close?

No, no, I would never want to watch it. I never watched Airplane II. Other people did Airplane II who didn’t know what they were doing, and they thought it was easy, and it’s just too hard to watch. But I don’t see any bad movies. I don’t go to movies unless three or four people say, “You’ve got to see this.”

The last movie I saw in the theater was Michael, which is great. I loved that. I mean, it’s not comedy, but I like seeing anything that’s good and original.

Scary Movie is in theaters now.