The Police Academy franchise has been away for a long time. The series successfully produced seven titles in the span of a decade, but Carey Mahoney and his loveable gang of misfit police officers have been away from the big screen for 24 years now. Frankly, it's the exact kind of brand you'd expect to see resurrected in modern Hollywood, and it's surprising it hasn't managed to come back already - but according to star Steve Guttenberg, the reunion is apparently starting to come together now.
There hasn't been talk about a new Police Academy movie since early 2016 when Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key were developing a reboot - but this sounds like it may be a different thing. Steve Guttenberg was playing around with fans earlier today on Twitter, and in response to a question about Police Academy, the actor mentioned that a new movie is starting to get into gear.
Directed by Hugh Wilson, the first Police Academy movie was released in 1984, and begins when the mayor of an unnamed American city announces that the local police department must start to accept everyone willing to apply for recruitment. This winds up bringing a whole lot of weirdos out of the woodwork, and despite being people you'd never want to see with a badge and a gun, they work to prove themselves as capable officers under the leadership of Carey Mahoney - a criminal forced to sign up as punishment. Only three actors - Michael Winslow, David Graf and George Gaynes - appeared in all three films, though sadly both Graf and Gaynes have since passed away.
In the last few decades the Police Academy movies have become a punchline in pop culture to a certain degree, but that has done nothing to stop the persistent talk of its return ever since Mission To Moscow was released in 1994. That being said, for a long while it looked like the move was going to be reboot over sequel. Plans to hit restart on the established continuity began back in 2010, with New Line hiring Scott Zabielski (Tosh.0) to direct, but that version died fairly quickly after The Break-Up writer Jeremy Garelick was brought in for re-writing duties. It was in 2014 that Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key first became involved, but obviously that was a long time ago.
Will this new version of Police Academy go anywhere? Will it bring back more members of the original cast? Is it a brand from the 1980s that people are really excited to see return? Only time will tell, and we'll just have to wait and see if what Steve Guttenberg is promising here ever actually becomes a reality.
In the meantime, to see what films are scheduled to arrive in theaters between now and the end of the year, be sure to check out our 2018 release calendar.
