Fresh off the success of The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer, breakout Saturday Night Live alum Adam Sandler set up his own production company in 1999. Combining the names of his earlier successes Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, Happy Madison became an umbrella company for Sandler to produce his own projects. He extended that to a number of his famous friends and collaborators over the years, but one aspect kept consistent over the company’s several decades since: Most of the films produced by Happy Madison were directed, written, and led by—predominantly, if not exclusively—men. That is, until recently, when Happy Madison began supporting the next generation of Sandlers, Adam’s daughters Sadie and Sunny. Now, while there’re still plenty of familiar projects on its docket, Sandler is expanding beyond his buddies’ projects and supporting a number of films featuring women both behind and in front of the camera.
Many Happy Madison movies—from the the devilish disasters Little Nicky and The Master Of Disguise to the juggernaut success of Mr. Deeds and Anger Management—are filled with Sandler’s friends, who serve up adolescent, lowbrow humor with nary a plot in sight. Most critics responded in kind upon the release of these films, including Roger Ebert, who panned Rob Schneider’s Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo with a pithy kiss-off: “Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.” Despite the scathing reviews, many of these movies found their target audiences, which were mostly guys with a sixth-grade sense of humor.
The House Bunny stood out in that long list of guy movies. Perhaps because of the Playboy-adjacent premise, the guy-centered production company greenlit the movie, and in the process, made a subversive comedy about sisterhood. The House Bunny was written by two legendary women screenwriters, Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith, who’d previously co-written 10 Things I Hate About You and Legally Blonde. The House Bunny bounced beyond its silly premise—a Playboy playmate becomes a house mother to a misfit sorority—to say something about solidarity, and about considering women beyond their appearance. In addition to featuring Anna Faris in one of her early lead roles, the movie also gave up-and-coming comic actresses Emma Stone and Kat Dennings a high-profile title on their way up the Hollywood ladder.
But after The House Bunny, Happy Madison went right back to goofy, developmentally arrested men for another decade and change. In 2023, eight years after making Netflix the home of his company’s films, Sandler broke with Happy Madison’s traditionally dude-centric docket to make a movie starring his daughters, Sadie and Sunny. The adaptation of You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah actually starred the whole Sandler family, including Adam’s wife Jackie. It also provided work for more actresses than one of his usual comedies, including Sandler’s Uncut Gems co-star Idina Menzel, SNL cast member Sarah Sherman, and longtime scene-stealer Jackie Hoffman.
Yes, it’s a dad financing movies for his kids. But by focusing on his daughters and the projects that interest them, Sandler opened the doors for Happy Madison’s future, expanding the kinds of movies they’re in the market to invest in, giving high profile opportunities to women and non-binary directors and behind-the-scenes talent, hiring actress from across age groups—bucking the trend of experienced actresses disappearing once they turn 45—and creating the kind of mid-tier coming-of-age movies that are almost extinct among major studio slates aiming for big budget IP-driven fare. For Bat Mitzvah, Sandler wanted someone who understood the Jewish experience and could handle the coming-of-age story, so he hired nonbinary director Sammi Cohen (Crush) to helm the project. A pair of women helm his daughters’ 2026 films.
Chandler Levack’s Roommates (starring Sadie Sandler) is a broad college comedy—think silly physical gags and running jokes galore—about a wildly unruly pair of roommates with boundary issues. In addition to Sandler, the film gives opportunities to legendary and upcoming actresses alike, including Carol Kane, Janeane Garofalo, Natasha Lyonne, Chloe East, Storm Reid, Ivy Wolk, and Sherman as the film’s narrator. The large cast and cringe-inducing jokes feel like a throwback to the kinds of movies Sandler made with his buddies, but the female-fronted Happy Madison productions are decidedly multigenerational, coping with the struggles of growing up and dealing with family, making movies for teens the Sandler sisters’ age, not just Gen X guys in basketball shorts.
Don’t Say Good Luck (starring Sunny Sandler) is a heartfelt mother-daughter drama that deals with both a dying parent and finding one’s passion in life. While the youngest Sandler is the lead, her co-stars Melanie Lynskey and Bebe Neuwirth also have their moments to shine as the main character’s mother and grandmother, echoing the multigenerational tension in director Julia Hart’s Fast Color. The film is a showcase not just for Sunny Sandler’s talent, but also that of Lynskey, with whom she shares a number of tender scenes. It’s also a treat to see Neuwirth take on a more dramatic turn than her usual brand of dry comedy, and to see the capable return of Hart, who like many other women directors in Hollywood, is still fighting to get noticed. The story itself is a bit of a departure from Happy Madison’s gross-out comedy offerings, but feels in line with the ambitions Adam Sandler has shown in his own dramatic projects like Hustle or Reign Over Me.
Last year marked a seven-year-low from the small gains that women directors have made in the film industry. Steps towards equitable onscreen representation for actresses have more or less stagnated. Happy Madison can’t single-handedly reverse the trend of women disappearing from director’s chairs, writing rooms, and on-screen appearances. But if even the unrepentant boy’s club of Happy Madison can grow up and acknowledge women’s stories and ambitions, Hollywood can, too. Maybe it takes becoming the father of daughters to realize there’s more to movies than Joe Dirt sequels. The pivot towards making movies for women and girls gives directors like Cohen, Levack, and Hart a large audience for their work and keeps actresses from Kane to Sherman entertaining audiences. We may still have to contend with a new Grown Ups sequel, but hopefully, this move outside the old Happy Madison box isn’t just a teen phase.
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