The Adam Sandler-headlined Happy Gilmore 2 is reported to have cost Netflix over $150m to make. If true: crikey. Listening to a recent episode of the terrific Team Deakins podcast, Steven Soderbergh is a guest on the show, and he talks about how the mid-budget films he used to make are the ones that people ... Happy Gilmore 2 | New report suggests film cost over $150m (!)
The Adam Sandler-headlined Happy Gilmore 2 is reported to have cost Netflix over $150m to make. If true: crikey.
Listening to a recent episode of the terrific Team Deakins podcast, Steven Soderbergh is a guest on the show, and he talks about how the mid-budget films he used to make are the ones that people no longer leave their homes to watch. Furthermore, in recent times, getting a mid-budget comedy a wide cinema release has been doubly tricky, with just The Naked Gun and The Roses managing the feat. Even then, their receipts are scrutinised to see if this is all sustainable.
It’s against this backdrop that Netflix launched what on the surface was a modestly-costed Adam Sandler-headlined sequel, Happy Gilmore 2. Landing in July, it wasn’t the best received film that Sandler had ever done, but serviced its audience, so to speak. Furthermore, it’s another box ticked in Sandler’s extraordinarily lucrative Netflix deal. For a decade now his bank account has been awash with Netflix cash, usually in exchange for not very good films.
The most jaw-dropping factor of Happy Gilmore 2 however may have just come to light. Assumed to have been a relatively-modestly-budgeted production, the film – as per New Jersey Business Magazine – looks to have cost over $150m just to make.
Let’s just take a communal breath to absorb that.
Okay, done that. Moving on.
To put $150m into context, that’s within $10m of the budget for Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, if we’re looking for a Netflix equivalent. On the big screen, it’d pay for Dunkirk, Frozen II, Mad Max: Fury Road, Moonfall or the upcoming Wicked For Good.
This number hasn’t come from Netflix direct and may well be contested. But whereas there are times when it’s fairly clear the money spent on a movie has all been spent on screen, I might suggest that the bulk of the spend here could potentially have gone on inflated salaries.
But also, there was a fair amount of physical work here. As the New Jersey Business Magazine website notes, the film shot in “31 municipalities and 9 counties across the state.”
Happy Gilmore 2 is available to watch on Netflix now, where you can see all 31 of those municipalities. At this rate, Happy Gilmore 3, should it ever happen, might end up so expensive they have to announce the cast via a never-ending video of chairs…
