Netflix has released its quarterly earnings report around the same time as its latest original film to star Adam Sandler, “Sandy Wexler,” the third of a planned eight, and according to the report, the subscribers of the gargantuan streaming network have spent “half a billion hours” watching Adam Sandler movies on Netflix.
‘The Ridiculous 6’ proved the Sandler deal was a good idea
Netflix raised more than a few eyebrows back in 2014 when they offered Adam Sandler full creative freedom and a huge amount of money to make not one, not two, but four whole original films to bee exclusive to their subscribers.
It was assumed that Sandler’s day was over. His box office intake was dwindling with films like “Pixels” and his appeal seemed to be rapidly fading with the abysmal critical responses to such ‘classics’ as “Jack and Jill” and “Grown Ups,” not to mention that even his kids don’t enjoy watching his films.
But Netflix seems to have proven all the naysayers wrong and then some since then, because though it may not have seemed so back then, Sandler’s the perfect fit for Netflix. No one wants to go out to a cinema and pay for a ticket to watch an Adam Sandler film, but as long as they’re paying a nominal subscription fee every month and they’re just chillaxing around the house, viewers figure they may as well stick on a Sandler film about cowboys searching for their father.
And that’s how “The Ridiculous 6” became the most-watched film on all of Netflix within a month of its release.
Then came “The Do-Over,” an action comedy in which Sandler co-stars with David Spade, and this week “Sandy Wexler,” an unlikely love story about a talent manager in the 1990s. “The Do-Over” quickly rose to being Netflix’s other most-watched film (and “Sandy Wexler” probably isn’t too far behind), and the streaming service is showing its gratitude to Sandler by signing him on for four more films on top of their original four-film deal, bringing the total to eight (with probably another deal to come in a couple years to bring it to twelve, then sixteen, and so on, with no real end in sight, just playing it on a four-film-deal-by-four-film-deal basis).
Report says Netflix are ‘excited’ by Sandler partnership
According to the Netflix earnings report, the streaming service team are “excited” about their partnership with Sandler, who has so far written and starred in all of his original films for them, and added that their subscribers are equally “thrilled” by his films, since they’ve spent “more than half a billion hours” watching them.
