Adam Sandler has had a considerable impact on the shape of comedy today, from his SNL
days, to his songs, to his uneven movie career.
But what's really going on behind that goofy big-screen persona that shies away from the
press?
Here is the untold story of Adam Sandler.
Adam Sandler was on television screens during a golden age for Saturday Night Live, becoming
one of the show's breakout stars.
And yet, in 1995, both he and Chris Farley were given the boot.
It's still unclear as to why the show terminated two of its biggest stars, but in 2014, Sandler
opened up about it to the Daily Beast:
"We kind of quit at the same time as being fired.
It was the end of the run for us...We kind of understood because we did our thing.
It hurt a lot at the time because we were young and didn't know where we were going,
but it all worked out."
However, Sandler did get his payback when he appeared on Conan O'Brien's then-fledgling
show shortly after his SNL exit.
That meant returning to NBC, and Sandler didn't just accept with no conditions.
He insisted that the network buy him a fax machine, which they did.
One through line of Adam Sandler's career is bad reviews, like the time Las Vegas Weekly
destroyed his 2015 tribute to 1980s gaming, Pixels.
They wrote:
"Calling Pixels one of Sandler's better movies is like calling a particular strain of Ebola
somewhat less horrifically painful; either way, it's not pleasant."
Everyone knows the entertainment business can be rough, but how do you reconcile yourself
when it's that harsh?
Sandler told The Independent in 2013:
"I could almost write the piece for them by now.
But then I remember that I didn't get into movies to please the critics.
I got into it to make people laugh and have fun with my friends."
Kind of media shy
While Adam Sandler has spoken a bit about how he feels about the critics, he hasn't
really said much about his reluctance to grant interviews.
Sandler is notorious for dodging the press.
According to ScreenCrush, who did get a sit-down, on-screen chat with him, he has a reason to
be media-shy.
According to Sandler:
"I used to be misquoted all the time."
His movies are successful
In March 2017, Netflix announced that they were signing Sandler to another contract for
another four movies.
The announcement was met with confusion, since The Ridiculous 6, the most well-known of Sandler's
first four Netflix films, received a shocking 0 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It was also the subject of a huge controversy over its alleged treatment of Native Americans,
which led to a walk-out by several members of the cast and crew.
According to Netflix, though, Sandler's films are some of the most popularly-viewed movies
across the US and 50 other territories across the world.
They also note that when his movies do hit theaters, the successes have done so well
that they make up for the failures.
At the time of that profile, his 30-odd movies had raked in $3.9 billion.
Have you ever noticed how Adam Sandler casts the same group of guys in almost all his movies?
As Variety so succinctly put it:
"...there's something invariably Clinton era about the Sandler posse, and not just because
it includes Vanilla Ice.
There's also Rob Schneider, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Norm MacDonald, Kevin James,
etc.
It gives the impression that he's making the same movie over and over again."
The actor doesn't really help his cause either by trying to defend himself to his critics.
Instead, he cracks jokes about his movie-making process.
He told the Independent:
"I sit in my room, and think up an idea.
Then I call up all my friends and they say: 'That's awesome!
You are the best.'
No, what really happens is that a group of us come up with an idea and work on it.
We just riff around, make jokes, try and make each other laugh."
Adam Sandler isn't always the dimwitted Canteen Boy from his SNL sketches.
He can, perhaps surprisingly, carry more serious roles with ease, too.
When 2002's Punch-Drunk Love came out, it was met with massive critical acclaim.
"I have a love in my life and it makes me stronger than you can imagine."
So, if roles like this are met with such praise, why doesn't Sandler pursue more of them?
As it turns out, his core fanbase disagrees.
Although Punch-Drunk Love is viewed as a cult classic now, at the time of its release it,
fared horribly.
With the price adjusted for inflation, the flick earned a mere $25.44 million at the
domestic box office.
That makes it one of the worst Sandler movies financially.
There's no denying that streaming services have become giants in the movie industry,
and Netflix alone makes its own fair share of flicks.
Unfortunately, critics, and even some filmmakers, don't like a majority of them.
Steven Spielberg, for example, took what many considered a "veiled shot" at streaming companies
while accepting the Filmmaker Award at the Cinema Audio Society's CAS Awards.
The director said:
"I hope all of us really continue to believe that the greatest contributions we can make
as filmmakers is to give audiences the motion picture theatrical experience."
Nevertheless, while some A-listers are uninterested in trying to cash in on the streaming boom,
Adam Sandler is certainly benefiting.
The actor signed a four-movie deal with Netflix in 2014, and yet another in 2017, even after
the critical flop of The Ridiculous 6.
So, why would Netflix want to keep working with someone after such a panned film?
As Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, told press at the UBS Media Conference, the
company, like Sandler, isn't concerned with the critics.
Sarandos explained:
"He is one of the most bankable, dependable stars on Netflix around the world...He's hugely
popular and just emerging in Latin America...We are looking at him as if he is a global superstar."
When you think of Adam Sandler's movies, there's a few scenes that jump out first.
Aside from a fist fight with Bob Barker, Billy Madison's dodgeball game is definitely one
of those scenes.
You might feel bad for laughing at little kids getting pegged with a hard rubber ball
thrown by a grown man, but you still laugh.
In March 2017, Sandler stopped by to chat with Conan O'Brien and the subject of that
famous scene came up.
He admitted that not only were those real dodgeballs, but that he also made at least
one kid cry.
"I wrote that movie Billy Madison, there's the dodgeball scene, and I'm hitting all these
first graders…"
"Really hard!"
"...really hard."
Sandler also said that he thought it was all pretty hilarious, but the parents absolutely
didn't feel the same way.
Sandler explained that it was in script, and they pointed out that the six-year-olds couldn't
read yet.
"But, those kids grew up and guess who they are today?
Uh...I don't know."
With Adam Sandler's once-teenage fanbase now grown up, does Gen Z understand his particular
brand of humor?
The Grown Ups actor hilariously gave Ellen DeGeneres some candid information about his
daughters watching his flicks.
"It's funny.
Some [of my movies] are OK, some are PG-13 ish...I'll put them on because they beg to
see them.
They're like, 'Please, it's not fair.
Let me watch your movies.
Those people always yell things at you on the street, and I don't know what the heck
they're talking about.'
So I show them the movies.
They demand this."
Sandler went on to say that that eagerness doesn't quite last:
"And every time, I'd say about 20 minutes in, and then I see them tuning out, and I
hear them, they're nervous to say it, but they're like, 'Can we watch something else?'"
Sandler knows his brand of comedy may not resonate with a younger generation, and even
the possibility of returning to Saturday Night Live was met with some hesitation for years.
He finally did return in May of 2019 and proved his self-deprecating humor did, in fact, still
work.
Poking fun of the fact that he was fired from SNL so many years ago, it was a nostalgic
return for many of his fans.
"Can't believe it!
Can't believe I'm back at Saturday Night Live after all this time, it's been a tremendous
week.
I love seeing old friends and making lots of new friends."
Typecasting is an issue for virtually any actor, but Adam Sandler seems to actively
pursue it.
He almost always plays relatable characters who happen to have a mean streak that might
be played for laughs on the screen, but would be incredibly uncomfortable in real life.
When The Harvard Crimson asked Sandler if there was a connection between his real personality
and his characters' anger issues, Sandler had a surprising answer.
"In real life, I do have a bit of that problem.
But over the years, I've been getting better, I think...But you're right, I do like snapping
and yelling, it's part of my comedy.
Sometimes when I'd snap in my house growing up, it would make my dad laugh.
Or sometimes, he'd smack me."
Some of the jokes in Adam Sandler's flicks that were once deemed funny don't exactly
hold up, especially in lieu of recent celebrity scandals and Hollywood's tolerance for sexist
behavior.
In fact, a common trope in Sandler's movies is that the oddball character always ends
up with a woman way out of his league.
Some people find the entire shtick a bit overdone, and it was actress Rose McGowan who put the
Wedding Singer actor on full blast on Twitter in 2015.
She posted a casting call note she received from Sandler's company along with the script
for her audition, which read:
"Wardrobe Note: Black (or dark) form-fitting tank that shows off cleavage (push up bras
encouraged).
And form-fitting leggings or jeans.
Nothing white."
Though it's unclear if this is specifically tied to her Sandler tweet, a few days later,
McGowan informed her followers that she was fired by her acting agent:
"I just got fired by my wussy acting agent because I spoke up about the bulls--- in Hollywood.
Hahaha."
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, McGowan later clarified that she wasn't trying to
vilify Adam Sandler, and that in reality, she was offended by the stupidity of the note
more than anything:
"It's just the institutional stupidity and the institutional infantilization of actresses.
Like an actress isn't going to look like her A-game.
We need to remind her."
Granted, we have no clue how involved Sandler is with casting notes, but McGowan raises
a valid question about the kind of culture being fostered in his productions.
There's no denying Adam Sandler has stuck to a shtick that he repeatedly plays in all
his flicks.
The lazy deadbeat who hasn't ever really grown up has been the same role he's played since
his early Saturday Night Live days.
While the comedy scene has evolved, Sandler has seemingly kept up with his own brand of
laughs.
As it turns out, viewers have gotten so used to the Big Daddy star's crude wit, that when
he does something different, it leaves everyone wondering if he actually has the capacity
for something new.
Forbes' review of Sandler's 2018 Netflix standup special, 100% Fresh, noted,
"Whether it's money, or a bad habit of working with less-funny friends, or a simple inability
to curate, it's tough to tell.
Still, he seems deeply human in this new special, and creating the good along with the bad seems
deeply human too, it's just that he does both at such extremes that it can be confusing."
Confusion aside, what was the verdict on the special?
A 90% on Rotten Tomatoes along with a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.
In 2014, leaked emails from Sony Pictures sent the entertainment world into upheaval.
The leak came just a few months after Adam Sandler signed his first deal with Netflix,
and people were still wondering just what had happened to cause the split.
After all, Sandler's Happy Madison production company was headquartered on Sony's lot, so
speculation was that something major had to have happened to cause the split.
According to emails released by Gawker, it was apparent that some Sony employees weren't
the biggest Sandler fans, as one email chain noted:
"We continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films.
Let's raise the bar a little..."
Then there were behind-the-scenes conflicts, which were revealed in more hacked emails,
published by the Daily Beast.
First there were complaints about some unspecified instances on the set of Hotel Transylvania
2.
Then a major confrontation between Sandler and Sony execs over his desire to adapt the
children's board game Candyland allegedly led to then-studio head Amy Pascal branding
Sandler with some harsh words.
There were money disputes over Hotel Transylvania 2, as well, leading many to believe that Sony
execs weren't exactly sad to see him leave for Netflix.
The feud between Howard Stern and Adam Sandler was so low-key that they didn't even know
how it started.
Well, Stern didn't, at least, and when they finally got to talking in 2015, they cleared
the air.
E! News reported that in 2012, Stern was on the air talking not only about Sandler, but
why he seemed to ignore him all the time.
Stern had a theory:
"I know Adam Sandler won't come on the show because I've, in the past, criticized his
movies,"
He went on to imply that not only was Sandler making the whole thing unnecessarily difficult,
but he was also being overly sensitive about the criticism.
When Sandler finally sat down and opened up about the feud, Stern and his listeners realized
that it was an insult and an injury that went much deeper than that.
Things finally came to a head when the two shared a flight, and Stern noticed the comedian
went out of his way to avoid him.
Sandler eventually hashed it out with Stern, telling him:
"Before I forget...when I was at NYU freshman year, you guys, I loved you.
That's why it was weird when you used to slam me."
"Yeah."
"It would break my heart."
He went on to say that he never went out of his way to be friendly with Stern because
he knew perfectly well what Stern had been saying about him, and for his part, Stern
apologized.
"I always felt bad about all those years we didn't speak."
"Me, too!"
When The Telegraph took a shot at explaining the secret to Adam Sandler's success, one
of the things they looked to was his departure from man-boy comedy with The Wedding Singer,
where he met his perfect on-screen match in Drew Barrymore.
It was the first of his films to break $100 million at the box office, and it introduced
him to a wider audience.
There's a good reason for that, because listening to Sandler and Barrymore off-set, it's clear
that their chemistry is 100 percent real.
When Collider asked them about it in anticipation of the release of Blended, their third film
together, Barrymore replied:
"I would sum it up with respect...I've always respected him.
I love him.
He makes us laugh."
For his part, Sandler answered:
"I love Drew.
I've known her a long time.
In all three movies, we've had the pleasure of falling in love.
With the first two, I faked it.
But with this one, I really did."
When The New Yorker reviewed Blended, the outlet's main issue was with the painful stereotypes
that went along with setting the film in Africa.
The movie would have had a chance to be something special if it had been set in, they say, a
place like the Catskills.
But location is everything in Sandler's movies, and when he went on Jimmy Kimmel Live, he
revealed a secret.
If people were starting to think that he picked his movies based on where he wanted to go
on vacation, they were absolutely right.
"[50 First Dates] was written in another place, and then I said, 'Imagine if we did it in
Hawaii, how great that movie would be.'
And they were like, 'Yes, that's a very artistic idea.'
I've been doing it ever since."
In addition to Blended's filming location in South Africa, that mentality has taken
him on an extended trip on a cruise ship, to Mexico, and to Hawaii twice.
Most celebrities have charities they support.
Sandler has gone a bit of a different route with some surprising moves.
In 2015, he appeared on Comedy Central's Night of Too Many Stars, which is an annual event
that started in 2006 to raise money for autism research and organizations.
During 2015's celebration, he came face to face with his old nemesis...Bob Barker.
"You like that old man?
You want a piece of me?"
"I don't want a piece of you, I want the whole thing!"
Even though they supposedly hadn't spoken in years, things went sideways quickly during
Sandler's visit to an ailing Barker in the hospital, and the two were right back at where
they left off in Happy Gilmore.
"Couldn't be nice, could you, Bobby?"
He made another off-beat appearance in 2012 at 12-12-12, a benefit concert for those that
had been impacted by Hurricane Sandy.
He took the stage along with big names like Bon Jovi and Roger Waters, but he wasn't singing
an old classic.
He was singing his own version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" with the chorus replaced
by a dig at the hurricane.
In 2007, he proved that he hadn't forgotten where he came from.
He donated $1 million to the Boys and Girls Club in Manchester New Hampshire, and he said
it was for all the good memories he had of growing up there.
Adam Sandler isn't known as an Academy Awards darling.
The actor had a brush with success when he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his Punch-Drunk-Love
performance, yet ultimately, he didn't win.
That's why, when the trailer for Uncut Gems came out in September of 2019, fans were totally
shocked.
Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie, the masterminds behind the critically-acclaimed flick, Good
Time, the movie stars Sandler and looks darker than anything he's ever done before.
As the actor says in the trailer:
"I made a crazy risk.
A gamble.
And it's about to pay off."
As it stands now, it looks like the actor is right.
Sites everywhere are touting that the Billy Madison star may actually be nominated for
an Oscar, especially after the film's premiere at Toronto's International Film Festival.
So, what does the actor have to say about the buzz?
Sandler told ET Canada:
"This is a different style of movie."
He also had a quip ready when he was asked how he felt about potentially winning an Oscar:
"Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought I was getting one for Happy Gilmore and that didn't happen so I won't hold my
breath."
The Safdie brothers certainly have some love for the comedian, as they said before the
film's premiere:
"You know, we grew up with him."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Nicki Swift videos about your favorite celebrities are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.