Put Adam Sandler in your movie and you are guaranteed
box office success. Sure you’ll have to pay around over A$30 million for his
services, but what you get in return is a comic with a huge amount of talent and an even
bigger fan base.
O.K, Sandler is not a hit with everybody. He has been described as
"juvenile and talent-less" by some over-critical members of the press. But
despite the constant criticism that has been leveled at his movies, he has cemented his
place as the hottest comic actor in Hollywood.
Born in Brooklyn, New York on September 9, 1966, Adam Sandler never
seriously thought of comedy as a legitimate career choice until he was seventeen. But as
soon as he got the taste for it, courtesy of an impromptu performance at a Boston Comedy
Club, there was no turning back.
He attended New York University where he gained a Degree in Fine
Arts, all the while making appearances at various comedy clubs around New York. It was
whist at N.Y.U, that he met Tim Herlihy, a friendship that was to prove helpful later on
in Sandler’s professional life.
After graduation, Sandler continued to work the clubs and scored
minor roles in television, most notably as a friend of Theo in The Cosby Show. But it
wasn’t until he scored to prized role of writer/performer on the American comedy
institution, Saturday Night Live, that Adam’s ride to A$30 million-a-movie
mega-stardom really kicked in to gear.
With weekly exposure on America’s most famous breeding ground
for comics (Saturday Night Live has ignited the careers of Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, Eddie
Murphy, David Spade and Chris Rock, to name just a few), it wasn’t long before
Sandler developed a major following.
His obvious comedic talent, accompanied by his boyish charm, won
over fans from all over the world and it was inevitable that Sandler would look to make
the transition to the big screen.
Small roles in Coneheads, Mixed Nuts and Airheads followed but it
was his starring role in, the critically condemned, but box office success, Billy Madison
(a film which he co-wrote with university pal, Herlihy) that signaled the start of much
bigger things.
The movie, about a twenty-something who repeats grades one through
twelve in order to inherit his father’s company, was childish and crude but it hit
the mark with audiences who realised that you were not meant to take the film too
seriously.
Sandler’s follow up film, Happy Gilmore, was again panned by
critics but was more popular with audiences. It grossed $38million at the U.S box office,
not bad for a movie which cost around $10million to make.
Next, he teamed with Damon Wayan’s for the deplorable
Bulletproof, a action-comedy which could have derailed Sandler’s chances of future
box office success. Sandler had strayed from his comedic path, and he paid the price for
it, but anyone predicting the demise of this New York funnyman would prove too quick with
their assessment.
It was with the release of The Wedding Singer in 1997, that Adam
Sandler made the transition from former Saturday Night Live cast member, to a genuine box
office talent. Wedding Singer was a far more mature piece of work, it was not as crude as
Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore and it struck a chord with cinema-goers, who proceeded to
make it one of the biggest movies of the year.
The movie, written only by Tim Herlihy, won Sandler a whole new
legion of fans. Critics gave the film favourable reviews and for the first time Adam
Sandler films were accessible to people over twenty-five, a market that had largely
ignored all of Sandler’s previous work.
Sandler returned to his roots with his follow up movie, The
Waterboy. Filled with the same "grade school humor" that made Billy Madison and
Happy Gilmore successes, The Waterboy was, yet again, dismissed by critics but lapped up
by audiences and it’s success at the box office saw the completion of Adam
Sandler’s rise into Hollywood’s elite.
1999 saw the release of the impressive, Big Daddy. Made in more of
The Wedding Singer mould, Big Daddy let the audience see a more sensitive side of Adam
Sandler. The cheap laughs were still there, but the film was slightly more
"story-based" than any of his previous films (with the possible exception of The
Wedding Singer).
