Let’s start with money because that’s often the measure of someone’s success. Mr. Sandler, Happy Gilmore himself, is worth about $420 million. It seems pretty fitting for his net worth to be 420 friendly. I wonder if he spends his weekends randomly buying up assets just so nothing harsher the mellow of his money.
If you’re keeping track, that makes Adam Sandler one of the richest actors in Hollywood. What? That’s right. The man who gave us Hubie Halloween enjoys a higher net worth than Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas and scores of other A-List actors.
When he signed a $250 million four-movie deal with Netflix, people were astounded by its record size and by the fact that it was with Adam Sandler. But guess what? Netflix has since extended that deal for another four movies. Clearly, he’s doing something right. People may write him off or wonder what his appeal is, but all the while he’s having the time of his life and laughing all the way to the bank.
And, sure, he has put out some bad movies. In fact, he’s earned 36 Golden Raspberry Award nominations, winning nine times. But he’s also been nominated for multiple Golden Globe, Emmy and Grammy Awards. He has earned a perfect 0% Rotten Tomato score for The Ridiculous 6 (well deserved in my opinion). But he’s also earned an astounding 92% for The Meyerowitz Stories.
In my opinion, most of his movies are at least mildly amusing and some are just plain amazing. I’m thinking of Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems. Both of those movies proved that my man Adam can act when he needs to. Shoot, even in a silly throwaway buddy movie like The Do-Over where he’s mostly being silly, he is able to deliver and comes across as very endearing.
But the biggest reason that Adam Sandler is my role model is because the man appears to have mastered the illusive work-life balance. By owning his own production company, he can better control what projects he works on. And as you can tell by the repeated appearances of his friends, he likes to make sure he has fun and stays connected with this who matter in his life even when he’s working. In fact, his wife and two daughters also appear in a ton of his movies.
Who wouldn’t want that kind of freedom? Who hasn’t wished for that kind of life?
Now I hold no illusions that my own budding side hustle as a novelist will ever become the publishing equivalent to Adam Sandler’s career. Hell, I’m too old for that. But I can certainly learn from him and use his career as a model for my own. And that’s exactly what I plan to do. As soon as I’m done hanging with my family.
