Adam Sandler's Netflix movies may not be good, but they're incredibly popular for the streaming service. There was a time when Will Smith and Adam Sandler were the darlings of Sony Pictures. Sandler's goal was to be as prolific as possible, and he starred in 24 movies between 2000 and 2015 - producing another thirteen he didn't appear in. Every one of them performed well, but the film industry was changing.
Viewers were turning up to support franchises rather than the stars themselves; Will Smith saw it coming and tried (too late) to get ahead of the curve with After Earth, which he intended to launch a transmedia universe bigger than Marvel. Sandler had no such ambitions, and his reputation with Sony was shaken after That's My Boy grossed just $57.7 million against a budget of $70 million. In 2014, the studio said 'no' to a pitch from Sandler for the first time.
Netflix saw their opportunity, and put in a phenomenal amount of effort to woo Adam Sandler. As film historian Ben Fritz notes in his book The Big Picture, Sandler was initially skeptical.
"He had escaped television twenty years earlier to become a movie star. Wasn't making movies that people would watch on TV, or even on an iPad, a step backward? But [Chief Content Officer Ted] Sarandos told him that by working with Netflix, he'd be on the cutting edge of the business, taking his brand directly to the fans on the platform where they preferred to watch him. Instead of begging for a yes from studio executives who were souring on his commercial appeal and often looked down their nose at his juvenile comedy, why not go with a distributor that valued exactly what he had to offer?"
That led to an initial 4 movie deal between Netflix and Sandler's Happy Madison production company, which has since been extended by the streaming service. The partnership has been a phenomenal success - but why is that the case?
Netflix Consider Adam Sandler A Huge Success
Adam Sandler signed up with Netflix in 2014, and since then he's produced a constant stream of original content. The Ridiculous Six was a broad satire of Western movies, and all the major studios had given it a pass. Sarandos revealed it was an absolute hit for Netflix, though.
"The Ridiculous Six, by way of example, in the first 30 days on Netflix it's been the most-watched movie in the history of Netflix. It's also enjoyed a spot at number one in every territory we operate in, and in many of them it's still number one."
The deal between Netflix and Sandler has been renewed twice now, most recently in January 2020, when Netflix revealed the sheer scale of the actor's popularity. According to the streaming giant, subscribers have collectively spent 2 billion hours - or 228,000 years - watched Sandler's Netflix Originals since 2015. 83 million people watched Sandler's Murder Mystery in its first four weeks of release. "Whether you know him as Sandman, the Water Boy, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Nick Spitz or simply Adam, one thing is clear: our members can’t get enough of him," Sarandos observed in an official statement.
This is a remarkable achievement, not least given the fact Sandler's movies have never been popular with critics. Back when he worked with Sony, Sandler realized newspaper critics and reporters tended to look down on his work, so refused to talk to them. He only did publicity by appearing on TV, on late-night talk shows with the likes of David Letterman and Jay Leno. The Ridiculous Six may have been a success for Netflix, but it has a score of 0 percent on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Sandler's reputation does seem to be improving - he received praise for Uncut Gems and stand-up special 100% Fresh - but a lot of his films, especially those produced by Happy Madison, are still universally derided by critics.
Why Are Adam Sandler's Netflix Movies So Popular?
In 2019, Morning Consult conducted a poll of Adam Sandler fans in an attempt to understand his enduring appeal. They found many of his most devoted followers had first come across Sandler early in his career, first seeing him on Saturday Night Live, or in the films Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. Even younger fans - some of whom weren't even born when Happy Gilmore was released - said these early films were their first experience with the actor. Ironically, they're less interested in the critically acclaimed performance in Uncut Gems than they are in Sandler's staple comedy fare. "It was tasty. It was easy. It went down smooth," entertainment analyst Robert Thompson told Morning Consult as he interpreted the results of the poll. "Nobody ever gave a chef’s award to a Chicken McNugget, but we still love them in the tens of millions of people."
Netflix is the perfect vehicle to reach Sandler's audience. The streaming giant doesn't bother too much with promotion, but instead is data-driven. Before 2014, Netflix had previously distributed a number of Sandler films as part of a deal with Sony, and they noticed he still had a strong following - including in territories where Sony never distributed his films. As Ben Fritz noted, "[Sandler's] aging audience might be less likely to pay to see him in a theater, but they still loved laughing at his antics at home." The key to Sandler's enduring Netflix success is the algorithm that recommends content to viewers, based in large part on their viewing history. This algorithm means Netflix know exactly which subscribers tend to watch their Adam Sandler movies. The minute a new Adam Sandler movie comes out, they can target it straight at its traditional audience. For Netflix, then, every Adam Sandler success story builds upon the last one. No doubt the minute someone checks out Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore, the algorithm identifies another potential Sandler fan and starts recommending his more recent works.
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All this signposts a key difference between film and TV content. People are no longer turning up to the movies because they like an actor or comedian, but rather because they're invested in a shared universe or franchise. But some actors - like Sandler - have successfully created a brand that nonetheless retains a degree of loyalty. In Adam Sandler's case, this loyalty manifests on Netflix, enabled and empowered by the technology underpinning the streaming service.