Drew Barrymore Confirms Adam Sandler Is Working on ‘Happy Gilmore 2'
The announcement comes after one of the movie's original actors made a similar claim.
Drew Barrymore has officially confirmed what many Happy Madison fans were eagerly hoping, that Adam Sander has a sequel to Happy Gilmore in the works.
Just a few weeks ago, Christopher McDonald—who played villainous yuppie Shooter McGavin in the 1996 comedy—claimed in an interview that a script had already been penned for a late-era sequel.
“I saw Adam about two weeks ago, and he says to me, ‘McDonald, you’re gonna love this,'” the actor recalled. “I said, ‘What?’ He says, ‘How about that,’ and he shows me the first draft of Happy Gilmore 2.”
In a preview clip of Friday’s installment of The Drew Barrymore Show, the former child star seemingly referred to McDonald’s remarks. “I want it. I need it,” Barrymore said of a Happy Gilmore sequel.
She continued: “I stayed up last night with my daughter watching Billy Madison,” which premiered the year before Gilmore. “I sent Sandler a video of that, and then he sent me another video back, and I’m waiting to see if he’s confirming about the Happy Gilmore 2 script.”
Later on in the show, Barrymore delivered a pressing update. “This just in, I have breaking news,” she exclaimed. “I’ll just say this, from my source, that it is in process."
“There is a process, and that process is in process,” Barrymore promised the audience.
Barrymore was breaking the news as “a proper journalist,” in her words, rather than announcing her involvement in the project. She didn't appear in the first film, in which Sandler’s love interest was played by Modern Family star Julie Bowen, but since the late ‘90s, Barrymore and Sandler have carved out a fruitful collaboration.
Their three romantic comedies—The Wedding Singer (1998), 50 First Dates (2004), and Blended (2014)—are some of the comedian’s sweetest and most accessible movies, still beloved among fans of both actors. Reteaming them a decade after their last collaboration, and on the 30th birthday of the first Happy Gilmore, would be a fool-proof way of getting people to tune in for the sequel.
But Sandler likely won’t have any problem getting people in seats. The first Happy Gilmore grossed $41 million on a slim $12 million budget, solidifying Sandler as one of the top box office draws of his generation.