Anna Daniels
It wasn’t always toilet paper rolls made of hundred dollar bills and Scrooge McDuck-like vaults filled with gold doubloons for Adam Sandler. He got his start like many comedic actors of his time: as a cast member on the iconic, seemingly unstoppable variety show Saturday Night Live. When Sandler made his jump to film, starring in 1995’s Billy Madison, that flick’s initial box office success was promising, though a far cry from the totals garnered by his later smash successes. Billy Madison made only $26.4 million on a $10 million budget; in Hollywood terms, that’s a win, but a pretty small one.
The success of Happy Gilmore marked the beginning of Sandler’s imperial phase at the box office, a span of several years that saw the release of classic smash hits like The Waterboy ($190 million), The Wedding Singer ($123 million) and Big Daddy ($235 million), successes that led directly to his first overall deal with Sony Pictures. Those kinds of numbers buy an actor a lot of runway with the studios, which is why Sandler’s still in business to this day, reaping the proceeds from an extension of his $250 million Netflix deal. And to think, none of it might have happened if a failing hockey player hadn’t tried his hand at golf.
Written by: Looper
