At long last, Adam Sandler has finally signed on to star in a Netflix movie that isn’t a comedy. The 54 year-old’s Hubie Halloween arrived a couple of weeks ago and dominated the streaming service’s Top 10 most-watched list as all of his output tends to do, but it was yet another formulaic entry in the Happy Madison back catalogue that saw the actor sticking to the stock characters, cast and crew he knows best.
Sandler is already hard at work on his next streaming exclusive feature Hustle, which is shaping up to be something at least a little different with LeBron James on board as one of the producers and no sign of Kevin James, Rob Schneider or Steve Buscemi as part of the sports movie’s cast just yet.
After that, though, the Sandman will head back into dramatic territory with literary adaptation The Spaceman of Bohemia, which has award winning Chernobyl filmmaker Johan Renck attached to direct. Channing Tatum is listed as one of the producers and so far, Happy Madison aren’t involved, which is an encouraging sign when Sandler’s outfit had nothing to do with his acclaimed indie Uncut Gems, either.
The plot finds an astronaut sent to the edge of the universe to collect an ancient dust sample, where he descends into madness, alcoholism and depression thanks to the isolation of his lengthy mission, forming a friendship along the way with a gigantic arachnid alien creature living on his ship that may or may not be real.
The 2017 novel is some pretty existential stuff, and seeing Adam Sandler return to dramatic territory in a sci-fi story that almost requires a show-stopping performance to make it works instantly turns The Spaceman of Bohemia into a Netflix project to keep an eye on.
