Career injection
Adam Sandler’s box-office powers are waning. Is it time he finally grew up?
In 2008, Adam Sandler seemed so unstoppable that we described him as one of “the kings of comedy the critics can’t depose”, his pulling power so sure that even duds like I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry made money. Critics may not have caused it, but that deposition is now in place. Nursing a 17% splat on reviews-counter Rotten Tomatoes and a box-office slump to match, Pixels marks the point at which Sandler’s arrested-adolescent schtick has gotten old.
It’s not happened overnight. Grown Ups (2010) was a hit, but subsequent Sandler hack-jobs have traced a declining box-office curve. Drew Barrymore reteam Blended, Andy Samberg team-up That’s My Boy and The Cobbler underperformed. As for Tomatoes, 3% for calamity Jack And Jill was duly rotten.
True, many might ask how a mithering man-child ever got so far anyway. But Sandler used his shambling reserve and bad hair to charm and disarm comedy club audiences – and, cannily, he repeated the trick on screen. Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore cornered the stoner doofus market. Retro romcom The Wedding Singer expanded his reach and The Waterboy consolidated it, while Big Daddy’s boy-to-man romance and gross-out gags brought a marquee-name upgrade. He experimented smartly, too, acknowledging his limitations but testing them in post-9/11 drama Reign Over Me, Paul Thomas Anderson’s funny-peculiar Punch-Drunk Love and Judd Apatow’s Funny People. But a rot was showing. Little Nicky flopped and, despite Click’s success, the idea of a universal remote control to shut off the world’s difficult bits veered too close to Sandler’s insulated worldview for comfort.
That worldview has been challenged lately, from Rose McGowan’s welcome exposé of casting-call sexism for a “Madam Panhandler” project to the Native American cast’s walk-out from Sandler’s upcoming western, The Ridiculous 6. True, Jason Reitman’s Men, Women And Children showed a willingness to “go indie” on Sandler’s part. But he prefers sticking to the title’s “child” bit, deploying safe-hands directors (Dennis Dugan, especially) to maintain his comfort-zone ballpark.
Brutally, Sandler’s audience has grown up in ways that Grown Ups proved he hasn’t. Whether or not his four-pic Netflix deal will signal fresh beginnings or sustained self-cossetting, the question is clear: has he got it in him to play catch-up? KH