It’s been nearly three decades since Adam Sandler introduced us to Happy Gilmore, and audiences showed how much the Sandman and his beloved character still resonates today following the record-breaking opening weekend of Happy Gilmore 2. According to the Netflix Top 10, the film amassed 46.7 million views in its first three days — the highest opening ever for not just an Adam Sandler Netflix film but also the biggest US opening weekend of all-time for a Netflix film. The original 1996 film also came in at three on the film chart with 11.4 million views.
And it isn’t just these two Sandler films that fans were drawn to since Happy Gilmore 2 bowed on Friday as Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation was the seventh film overall. On top of that, both of his classic Grown Ups features have at one point ot another hit the top ten films on the top ten daily viewership chart for films.
The sequel also had a huge impact on the social media front having massive engagement following the premiere which included trending on X all weekend. This engagement was propelled by celebrity support that included Sandler, Travis Kelce, golf stars Rory Mcllroy and Scottie Scheffler, Post Malone and Guy Fieri. It also got the rare social media support of Taylor Swift, who gave a shout out to the film (which features her boyfried Kelce) InstaGram stories, marking only the third time all year she has posted an IG story. This should come as no surprise given that the Netflix announced earlier this year that the film had the largest social engagement for a trailer when it bowed online.
Since signing an exclusive deal with the streamer in 2014, Sandler films have always been big hits for Netflix commonly appearing on its biggest films of the year data charts. Even so, this film marked the first time he would take one of his legacy characters that did big money at the box-office and turn it into a sequel for Netflix and the results are clear that audiences will show up for those iconic Sandler characters no matter where they are playing.
Sandler isn’t letting this recent success slow him down as he as a very busy fall ahead of him starting with his comedy tour, Adam Sandler: You’re My Best Friend Tour, which will begin in September and hit 37 arenas. He also has the highly-anticipated Netflix dramedy Jay Kelly, which also stars George Clooney and reunites Sandler with director Noah Baumbach. Early buzz suggests that not only the film could be in award season contention but Sandler as well.
