If anyone had even the slightest doubts over Adam Sandler‘s continuing popularity, then the latest numbers should put any questions to bed. Netflix subscribers have spent more than two billion hours streaming his movies, which is the equivalent of over 228,000 years, a mind-boggling figure that makes it clear just how valuable Happy Madison Productions is to the platform.
Even before he took his particular brand of comedy exclusively to Netflix, though, Sandler was one of very few actors who could unquestionably be labeled as a box office draw. Not a lot of people are capable of opening a pic based on the strength of their name and nothing else in an era where the franchise is king, but a combined haul of over $5.5 billion is undeniably impressive, especially when the only sequels of the bunch are Grown Ups 2 and the second and third installments of the Hotel Transylvania series.
Of course, the 53 year-old has never been one for returning to the well, but insider Daniel Richtman now claims that Sandler is reportedly in the early stages of developing follow-ups to two of his most popular hits. According to the tipster, sequels for Billy Madison and The Waterboy are in the works, although there might be rights issues given that both movies were released before Happy Madison was founded in 1999.
For those unfamiliar, Billy Madison was Sandler’s first big screen leading role and set the template that he still follows to this day, while The Waterboy gave birth to one of his most popular characters in Bobby Boucher. Further details on what exactly we’d see in potential follow-ups to these films remain unclear, but both would be guaranteed to draw in massive numbers, as the fact that Hubie Halloween is the most-watched original movie on Netflix in 2020 proves that audiences will flock to anything with his name attached.
