The seth-rogenization of Adam Sandler.
Clearly I don't pay enough attention to the career of Adam Sandler, because I didn't realize until just recently that Sandler's next movie in production is a collaboration with producer/director/writer Judd Apatow. Maybe this doesn't seem like such a big deal; after all, the pair have already worked together on YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN earlier this year, which Sandler starred in and cowrote with Apatow. But still, I think the pair's new project - FUNNY PEOPLE, slated for release in 2009 - suggests a fairly big shift in terms of Sandler's career, and could lead to what I'll call a Seth Rogen-type effect for the actor. To be honest, I'm not a big Sandler fan. His earlier movies HAPPY GILMORE and BILLY MADISON are fine enough, easy diversions. I think of them as excellent movies to run in the background while I'm loading the dishwasher - and if you couldn't tell, that's not really a compliment. I apply that same low standard to ARMAGEDDON. But Sandler has a talent for creating at least one truly memorable comic setpiece per movie, as well as the ability to make some decent money at the box office. His schtick - although it's one that rarely does much for me - endures. And if we judge Sandler by the trailer for his upcoming BEDTIME STORIES, clearly we're in for more of the same. Lame-to-awful jokes, cloying sentimentality, physical humor involving pain, and a preference on my part to be clubbed with a socket wrench rather than go see it. Apatow, on the other hand, is much more of a rising star. Since the 2005 release of THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, Apatow can take responsibility for the the resurgence of the R-rated, Regular Guy Comedy in which not-marquee type actors portray guys like we see around us each day - only they're funnier, more resourceful and always get the girl in the end like movie characters should. Apatow instills a sense of emotionality, insecurity - a humanity - that Sandler's characters typically lack. He defines his comedy in how these guys relate to each other and the women in their lives, much more so than how they take a baseball to the nuts, which seems too often to be the case in Sandler's movies. At first, I figured that Sandler's interest in working under Apatow as a director was because Sandler was on a downslope of box office returns at this point in his career. But click on this nifty graph I made - oh so scientifically - and you can see a comparison of Sandler's box office numbers (in green) from his last seven movies with Apatow's last seven movies that he directed and/or produced (in purple).
