Ike Barinholtz, telling the story to guest Joel McHale on his podcast, and co-writer David Stassen were pitched the idea back in the 20-teens, apparently by the original's creator Paul Maslansky... who was bent on an R-rated effort bringing back as much of the original cast as possible, except that Stassen had no clues which of them had passed away... it also hadn't helped that Black teen Michael Brown was fatally shot in 2014 by a White police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, prompting days of protests:
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/key-and-peele-police-academy-reboot-canceled-michael-brown-1236784494/ (link)
B