Adam Sandler's major reinvention from cheeky chap to Hollywood's biggest earner
The 58-year-old is undoubtedly one of busiest stars around, having made his screen debut in the 80s, and is still working tirelessly today.
On Friday, he is set to bring a beloved character back to our screens once again in the Happy Gilmore 2 sequel, leading the star-studded cast alongside Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald and Ben Stiller, with appearances from Travis Kelce and Bad Bunny.
But how did the Brooklyn-born actor, who made us all laugh in Just Go With It, Big Daddy and Grown Ups, turn laughter into a multi-million-dollar deal with Netflix?
Adam began his career in stand-up before making the transition over to the small screen, with his TV debut as Smitty in a handful of episodes on the Cosby show in 1987.
From there, he landed a string of film roles in movies including Going Overboard and Coneheads, before becoming a regular on Saturday Night Live between 1990 – 1995.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
He also starred in and wrote Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, as well as showcasing his talents in Big Daddy, Little Nicky, The Hot Chick, 50 First Dates and many more.
Over the last few years, he has juggled his regular comedies in with some more serious roles, including Uncut Gems, Hustle and Spaceman, and is set to star opposite Laura Dern and George Clooney in Jay Kelly very soon.
In 2014, his Happy Madison company took a huge step and signed a massive deal with Netflix, worth $250million, to produce films for the streaming service, including The Ridiculous 6, The Do-Over and his Murder Mystery movies.
He also headlined two Netflix stand-up specials, 100% Fresh and I Love You.
The lucrative partnership with the streaming services has been extended twice so far and, according to the Telegraph, in 2020, Netflix bosses claimed that subscribers had spent more than two billion hours watching his films.
This has all helped to cement his status as one of the biggest stars of our time. Forbes reports that he was the 9th highest paid actor for 2024 – after topping the annual list the previous year – and earned a whopping $26m.
Considering he has two huge projects coming out this year and a reported net worth of around $440m, we predict more appearances in the Forbes list in his future…
While Adam has remained booked and busy in the decades since his career began, he has also gone above and beyond to help out his peers in the industry, giving pals roles and cameos in whatever project he was working on.
In fact, members of his circle have become his most regular co-stars, with Rob Schneider, Steve Buscemi and David Spade appearing in countless Adam Sandler creations alongside his wife, Jackie, and their daughters, Sadie and Sunny.
Hollywood heavyweight Al Pacino previously shared that the Funny People superstar gave him a role in 2011's Jack and Jill at a point when he was struggling for money – due to a corrupt accountant and years of overspending.
'I was broke. I had $50 million, and then I had nothing,' he wrote in his 2024 memoir, Sonny Boy, via IndieWire. 'In this business, when you make $10m for a film, it's not $10m. Because after the lawyers, and the agents, and the publicist, and the government, it's not $10m, it's $4.5m in your pocket.
'But you're living above that because you're high on the hog. And that's how you lose it. It's very strange, the way it happens. The more money you make, the less you have.
'The kind of money I was spending and where it was going was just a crazy montage of loss. […] And I thought, It's simple. It's clear. I just know this. Time stopped. I am f**ked.'
'Jack and Jill was the first film I made after I lost my money. To be honest, I did it because I didn't have anything else,' he recalled. 'Adam Sandler wanted me, and they paid me a lot for it. So I went out and did it, and it helped.
'I love Adam, he was wonderful to work with and has become a dear friend. He also just happens to be a great actor and a hell of a guy.'
There is no denying that Adam has been a major part of the most iconic comedies in recent years, with many of his early 00s films still being quoted today – but he hasn't always been taken seriously by critics.
In fact, while he pocketed millions of dollars in his deal with Netflix, he also has nine Razzies to his name and many more nominations.
Discussing the harsh criticism he has received throughout his career and whether that 'stings', he told the AARP: 'Sometimes. Mostly because I invite all these amazing people I care about to make movies with me, and I wish they didn't have to read s**t about whatever we've made.
'But I don't get too shook up. I always remember something my father said. He was a tough b*****d. He went through ups and downs in his life, like not having work for a year or two and not telling us.
'I recall one time that something didn't go right for me. I bombed onstage or didn't get an audition. I was upset and probably embarrassed. And he said, 'Adam, you can't always be happy. People aren't always going to like you. You're going to fail.' I said, 'But I just want to be happy, man. I don't want all that other crap.' More Trending
'He said, 'You won't actually know you're happy if you don't feel that other stuff.'
Touching on what keeps him going amid negative reactions, he added: 'I like giving myself over to a new challenge. Sometimes I feel like I'm tapped out with new thoughts, and then all of a sudden, something new comes up and I go, 'Okay, how can I make this happen?'
'It was cool as hell pushing myself in new ways like I did on Uncut Gems. Running around the Diamond District in New York, the intensity of that amazing character, or in Hustle, being around the greatest NBA players and not worrying about laughs as much as what each character is going through and pulling for. But I do love comedy more than anything.'
Happy Gilmore 2 is released on Netflix on Friday.
Got a story?
If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you.
MORE: Everything we know about Bruce Willis' frontotemporal dementia diagnosis
MORE: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham are 'reuniting' – here's why it's such a big deal
MORE: Jane Fonda, 87, reveals the item she wears to bed 'because she's single'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
2 hours ago
- Metro
Best new mobile games on iOS and Android – August 2025 round-up
A mobile version of Subnautica, a Zack Snyder movie tie-in, and the return of Angry Birds are amongst this month's most interesting mobile games. Like Google before it, Netflix's foray into video games doesn't appear to be going to plan. Despite concentrating on mobile – a more accessible sector with a faster turnaround than PC or console titles – the recent deletion of 20 games from its roster, including crown jewels like Hades and Monument Valley 3, isn't a great sign. There's a move afoot to concentrate on Netflix IP, as typified by this month's Blood Line: A Rebel Moon Game, which while perfectly competent is a little uninspiring. Netflix subscribers will still find all-time classics like Into The Breach are available, but it may be wise to make the most of them while you can. iOS & Android, £8.99 (Playdigious) Released for PC in 2018, Subnautica finally makes its way to mobile with this excellent port. Once again your spaceship suffers a rapid unscheduled disassembly over watery planet 4546B, leaving you with just an escape capsule bobbing on the waves, which when you begin the game, is on fire. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. To survive on your own, in an alien ocean, you need to harvest crafting materials to make useful props, like The Swiss Family Robinson but with a fabricator. Starting with longer lasting oxygen tanks and flippers for speedier underwater swimming, you're soon building submarines and entire undersea bases. Touch controls are rarely ideal, but the slow-moving undersea environment doesn't demand twitch reactions, although you will still need to make the odd swift getaway from large aquatic predators. The lovely undersea environments, gradual exploration, and drip feed of new construction blueprints remains hugely compelling. Score: 8/10 iOS & Android, included with Netflix subscription (Netflix) Based on the instantly forgettable Zack Snyder films, Blood Line uses Rebel Moon's lore and universe, which means the plot is complex but turgid, its poker-faced dialogue delivered by still drawings of generic, bearded sci-fi bodybuilders. Behind the characterless facade you'll find a twin stick shooter, whose missions – steal fuel supplies, destroy signal jammers, acquire holographic MacGuffin – boil down to shooting some people and robots, activating switches, then defending an area from more people and robots, before being extracted back to the bearded muscleman mothership. It looks fine, you can play co-op with randos online, and its guns look and feel powerful, with a variety of different characters and skills to experiment with. The action is pretty mindless but also moderately entertaining, provided you skip through the plot exposition at high enough speed. Score: 6/10 iOS & Android, £4.99 (Headup Games) Physics-based bridge building games work really well on a touchscreen, especially on the slightly roomier screen of an iPad, and Bridge Constructor Studio is no exception, its interface proving straightforward and intuitive. Start by sizing up the gap you need to cross, available anchor points, and the vehicles you'll need to get to the other side, then make a bridge using as few materials as possible to bring it in under budget, earning a golden screw for each level successfully completed. In fellow bridge maker, Poly Bridge 3, you could view the winning constructions of players on its leaderboard, which was a nice twist, but even without that Bridge Constructor Studio is a polished puzzle game with near endless scope for tinkering, as you try and complete each challenge with fewer and cheaper materials. Score: 8/10 iOS & Android, free (Pusilung) Borrowing the core gameplay of last year's free-to-play Nightfall: Kingdom Frontier TD, Shadow Kingdom may not look quite as refined, but it's no mere rip-off. Underneath the mild plagiarism and less cartoony art style is a much more balanced and interesting game. Centred around a controllable hero defender, you use the winnings from each wave's dispatched enemies to build resource generators, defensive towers, and barracks to train ground troops. Each level's geography, tower availability, and the constituency of its waves of enemies makes it a singular puzzle to unpick. Watching the occasional ad does help the war effort, and there are deliberate pay walls that take a bit of grinding to get through, but Shadow Frontier still manages to deliver a decent sense of progress and thought-provoking challenges, that often take a few attempts to figure out. Score: 7/10 iOS, included with Apple Arcade Subscription (Apple) One of the founding pillars of the mobile video game ecosystem, Angry Birds has been around seemingly forever. Its latest instalment, Bounce, returns to sling-shotting ball-shaped birds, but this time rather than knocking down buildings, you're trying to eliminate tiles by catapulting and rebounding birds into them. Once again, different birds come with their own destructive properties, so choosing the right ammo for each level really helps you get through it, and since this is Apple Arcade, all hint of microtransaction has been expunged, leaving you to enjoy as much of it as you like. As is traditional for the franchise, it's actually pretty tough once you get going, its cartoon-style good looks belying serious difficulty, even if it never quite manages to match the charm of the Puzzle Bobble games, which relied on a similar mechanic. Score: 6/10 iOS & Android, free (IGG Singapore) More Trending A blatant and terrible looking AI introductory sequence, with poorly translated dialogue, helps set the scene for a game that plays exactly like Kingshot and its ilk. That means you'll be refurbishing a cute village, bulking up its army and defences, and joining a clan. After those gentle introductory hours, you're then unleashed into the wider world, where you'll instantly fall prey to players who've spent more money than you and will repeatedly and ruthlessly demolish your settlement. Given just how many games are built around these mechanics, it suggests there's a market for its brand of skill-free pay-to-win warmongering. And yet it's baffling that a game that only rewards you for waiting and paying would be worth making in the first place, especially when it's dressed up in dismal generative AI art assets. Score: 2/10 Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Gradius Origins review – shooting the core in Salamander 3 MORE: Time Flies review – the life and death of a bluebottle MORE: Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound review – don't rage against the machine
The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
Why is Percy Hynes White not in Wednesday season 2?
Percy Hynes White, who portrayed Xavier Thorpe in Netflix 's hit series Wednesday, has been dropped from the show's second season, which premiered on August 6. His removal follows allegations of sexual misconduct made against him in January 2023, which the Canadian actor has denied, calling them a 'campaign of misinformation'. Netflix has not officially confirmed the specific reason for White's departure from the Addams Family spin-off. Within the show's narrative, White's character, Xavier, is explained to have left Nevermore Academy and been sent to Reichenbach Academy in Switzerland. White stated in June 2023 that the accusations were false and led to his family being doxxed and friends receiving death threats.
Scottish Sun
5 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Madonna looks sensational as she poses in boa and stockings for sexy shoot days before 67th birthday
Madonna is planning to celebrate her birthday with 29-year-old boyfriend Akeem Morris TAKE A BOA Madonna looks sensational as she poses in boa and stockings for sexy shoot days before 67th birthday Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) MADONNA goes hell for feather — posing in a boa and stockings days before turning 67. The Queen of Pop also crawled on all fours in jewellery and towering heels for a racy shoot. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 5 Madonna posed in a boa and stockings days before turning 67 Credit: Instagram 5 The singer also crawled on all fours in jewellery and towering heels for a racy shoot Credit: Instagram She is working on her 15th studio album — a sequel to 2005's Confessions on a Dance Floor — which will be her first since 2019's Madame X. Madonna is expected to go on hols with boyfriend Akeem Morris, 29, for her birthday next week. Last year she celebrated in Pompeii. Other birthdays have included trips to Lisbon and Sicily. Meanwhile, Madonna has spent the past few years working on a movie about her life. Actress Julia Garner was lined up to play the Hung Up hitmaker in the film before it appeared to be left on the shelf over two years ago. Now it seems that plans have been re-imagined with Julia confirming last month she is still lined up to play the iconic popstar in a Netflix miniseries about her life. Madonna and Julia are working with filmmaker Shawn Levy on the project, which is in the early stages of development. Confirming that the project was still happening, despite the uncertainty, Julia told the SmartLess podcast: 'Yeah, I mean, that's supposed to still happen." However, she did appear to hint that the project may still be far off hitting screens as she affirmed that "anything that's great, takes time". Madonna, 66, shows off bra under sheer top as she gyrates with boyfriend Akeem Morris at his 29th birthday party 5 Madonna turns 67 in just over a week Credit: Instagram 5 The singer is working on her 15th studio album Credit: Instagram
