The End of Adam Sandler's Career is Probably Far Away

Hollywood has always had a dichotomy between commerce and art, between blockbusters and Oscar bait.  In 2009 I was amused that many people picked Avatar to win the Best Picture Oscar over The Hurt Locker because Avatar had made more money; Hurt Locker won precisely because Avatar had made more money, and Hollywood hates to give awards to people whose films make a lot of money.  In recent years the only top grossing film to win Best picture was Titanic, which is in a class by itself.  If making money won you Oscars, Stan Lee would be the most successful movie producer in Oscar history.

Probably no single person in Hollywood embodies the distinction between art and commerce more than Adam Sandler.  Critics lambasted his latest film, Pixels, which is nothing new.  However, apparently audiences are now staying away as the film grossed “only” $23.7 million in its opening weekend, coming in second behind week two of Ant Man.  My observation is that $23.7 million is impressive given Sandler’s track record.

The Metacritic scores of films featuring Adam Sandler (not counting animation voice-over work and films where he appeared as himself) are a study in small numbers.  Pixels had a score of 27, which is bad but still better than his attempt at “serious” work in The Cobbler, which got a score of 23.  Men Women and Children had a score of 38, which amounts to a critical rave compared to Blended’s 31, Grown Up’s 30 and Grown Ups 2’s 19 (if the rumors about a Grown Ups 3 are true, Metacritic might have to use negative numbers).  He broke into the 60’s with 2009’s Funny People, but before that came Bedtime Stories (33) and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (37).  2007 produced his second most acclaimed film, Reign Over Me, clocking in at 61.  Except for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love (78) the only other Sandler film cracking 55 is The Wedding Singer at 59 (which is a ridiculously low score; I suspect some critics were simply piling on Sandler early in his career).

Since 2007’s Reign Over Me, the average Adam Sandler live action movie has a 34.3 Metacritic score.  Given an eight year run of bad movies, I’d say a $24 million opening weekend is surprisingly positive.  If the average ticket price is $8, that means three million people still want to see Adam Sandler star in a movie comedy.  Of course those 12 films grossed an average of $75 million (even when throwing in The Cobbler, which had a domestic gross of zero), and half of them crossed the $100 million threshold ( which includes both Bedtime Stories and Just Go With It, both of which had a Metacritic score of 33).

However, if you do a correlational analysis on his last 10 live-action films (excluding The Cobbler and Men, Women and Children, neither of which opened in wide release), you find that there is an inverse relationship between Metacritic scores and box office gross, with a correlational coefficient of -0.269.  The more critics hate an Adam Sandler film, the higher the box office revenue.  And that’s not even including Punch Drunk Love, which grossed a mere $17 million despite (or maybe because of?) its 78 Metacritic rating. If you take the entire Sandler oeuvre, the average Metacritic score is 40 with a negative correlation of score vs. revenue of -0.173.

I guess you can’t criticize how Adam Sandler has managed his career, given all the money his films have made.  He has consistently aimed for the lowest common denominator, and most of the time he’s hit it.  Grown Ups 2 was reviled by critics and grossed $133.7 million.  So why should he try harder?  Pixels, even if it flops, will put him over the $3 billion box office threshold.

I’ve always said it is difficult to make an effort when you get rewarded for not making one.  One actor that I think made a conscious effort to improve his craft despite early success is David Boreanaz, who was a vacuous, good looking hunk during his first season on Buffy, The Vampire Slayer.  I don’t know if it was working with the other quality actors on that show (and its spin-off, Angel), or working with Joss Whedon’s material, but by the finale of Angel Boreanaz could hold his own in dramatic scenes and had a definite flair for comedy. He parlayed his eight seasons on Buffy and Angel into eleven seasons and counting on Bones, and while he’ll never get an Emmy nomination, being a star on TV for nearly 20 years is an impressive achievement.  Just ask anyone who starred on Baywatch not named Hasslehoff.

If this is the end for Sandler’s career, I assume he has enough socked a way to get by.  Of course it won’t be “the end” as he’ll continue to find work (having just inked a deal with Netflix), and maybe he’ll find the right vehicle.  His next project, The Ridiculous Six, is already getting bad press and Sandler is showing incredible insensitivity about racial issues.  I suppose if he gets desperate enough he can always land a sitcom on NBC. 

I don’t think Sandler is talent-less, as attested by the good reviews for Reign Over Me, Punch Drunk Love and The Wedding Singer.  I think he needs to try harder to find a sweet spot where he can please both the critics and the ticket buying public.  But this probably won’t happen as long as someone is willing to pay him for name recognition alone.