Sandler, Seriously

COLUMBIA
Emily Watson and Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love

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The song also inspired the title of Sandler's next film, an animated musical called 8 Crazy Nights. The movie, in which Sandler provides several voices, will be released by Sony in November. Like nearly all his movies, it will be produced through Sandler's Happy Madison Productions. Run by a tightly knit group of Sandler's buddies, the company has turned out several low-budget comedies starring his former Saturday Night Live colleagues. Happy Madison's television arm recently struck a deal to produce a sitcom for the WB network. Working with Revolution Studios, Sandler will serve as executive producer on next year's feature comedy Anger Management. Sandler was paid a reported $25 million for the movie, which co-stars Jack Nicholson. There's a very funny scene in the movie in which Sandler and Nicholson sing a duet of I Feel Pretty from West Side Story; the clip is already making the rounds in Hollywood.

Sandler, who grew up in New Hampshire and actually does keep his private life private, refuses all print interviews. But that doesn't seem to hurt him with his audience. Other big stars such as Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks all have aging fan bases. But Sandler's demographic is golden: his disciples range from 10 to 30, and he has a surprisingly large female following, which makes up about 40% of his opening-weekend audience. Not bad for a guy who loves poo jokes. "He has a cult following of millions," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office-tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. "The thing about his audience they are growing up with him, and they're still in that most-frequent-moviegoer category." Adam Sandler appears to be growing up but not wearing thin. Nothing dumb about that.