After Uncut Gems Snub, Adam Sandler Continues To Dominate On Netflix

Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems

Adam Sandler may be getting a lot of acclaim right now for his turn as Howard Ratner in the theatrically-released Uncut Gems, but ever since 2015, the majority of his movies have been released on Netflix. Well, following the success of last year’s Murder Mystery and getting snubbed by the Oscars for his Uncut Gems work, Sandler has decided to stick around the streaming service for the foreseeable future.

Netflix has announced that Adam Sandler will make four new movies for the platform. In Netflix’s eyes, Sandler’s contributions have been most welcome, with the company saying that subscribers have spent “two billion hours” watching Sandler’s movies since 2015. It’s no wonder it wants to keep him around.

Here’s what Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, had to say about the continued partnership with Adam Sandler:

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. They love his stories and his humor, as we saw with Murder Mystery. So I could not be more excited to extend our partnership with Adam and the Happy Madison team and deliver more laughs around the world.

Adam Sandler kicked off his time on Netflix with The Ridiculous 6, a Wester action comedy where he starred alongside folks like Terry Crews, Jorge Garcia, Taylor Lautner, Rob Schneider, Luke Wilson and Nick Nolte, to name a few. While The Ridiculous 6 failed to impress critically (and that’s putting it lightly), it did collect a lot of views, becoming the most viewed movie on the platform in a 30-day period by January 2016. From there, Adam Sandler continued his Netflix tenure with The Do-Over, Sandy Wexler, The Week Of and the stand-up special Adam Sandler 100% Fresh, as well as starred in the Noah Baumbach-directed The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected).

As mentioned earlier, Adam Sandler’s latest Netflix offering was Murder Mystery, which starred him and Jennifer Aniston as a couple who get caught up in a murder investigation while vacationing on a billionaire’s yacht. According to Netflix, Murder Mystery was watched by 83 million households within the first four weeks of its release and is the most popular title on Netflix in the U.S. The comedy also won the People’s Choice Award for Best Comedy of 2019.

It’s also worth mentioning that while Uncut Gems has been screening in theaters in the United States, internationally, the Sadie Brothers-directed movie was released on Netflix today. It’s unclear when Netflix subscribers in the U.S. will get to watch Uncut Gems on the platform, but considering all the positive reception it’s received over the last month, one would imagine that like Adam Sandler’s other Netflix movies, it’ll get a lot of eyes on it.

We'll have to wait to learn what any of these four new movies Adam Sandler is working on will be about (presumably one will be the Murder Mystery sequel), but in the meantime, the actor already has something else lined up for later this year. Hubie Halloween has Sandler playing Hubie Dubois, a “good-natured, but eccentric community volunteer” who finds himself caught up in a murdery mystery in his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, where he’s mocked by kids and adults alike. The movie’s cast includes Kevin James, Julie Bowen, Maya Rudpolh, Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, Rob Schneider, Michael Chiklis, Kenan Thompson and many more.

Netflix also mentioned that Adam Sandler has an animated feature film in the works that he’ll write, produce and star in, although it’s unclear if this is part of his new deal with the company or came from the earlier one. Regardless, while most of Sandler’s on-screen offerings have been live-action, he already has some animation experience under his belt with Eight Crazy Nights and the Hotel Transylvania movies.

Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more news about Adam Sandler’s forthcoming Netflix movies. For now, Uncut Gems is still playing in theaters, and plan your trips to the theater later this year with our 2020 release schedule.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.