Adam Sandler has been making Netflix money for years, but he’s never had a success quite as large as Happy Gilmore 2 . The comedy sequel debuted on the streaming service on July 25, and over just three days, it accumulated 46.7 million views, where views are defined as the number of hours the movie was watched divided by its runtime.
That makes it the biggest opening weekend of all time in the U.S. for a Netflix original film. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s also a personal best for Sandler, who has made a number of movies for Netflix since the streamer started investing in original content. The movie was number 1 on Netflix over the weekend, and the original Happy Gilmore was the third most popular movie on the streaming service.
Happy Gilmore 2 comes almost 30 years after the original film, which first hit theaters in 1996, and was part of a wave of comedies that turned Sandler into a bona fide comedy star. The original film follows Sandler’s titular character, an aspiring hockey player who realizes that he has a talent for golf and eventually becomes highly competitive, even as he braces against many of the strictures of the culture around the sport.
In the sequel, Happy retires from golf following a tragic accident, and only returns after he learns that he needs to find a way to finance the tuition for his daughter’s dance school. The new movie features the return of Christopher MacDonald’s Shooter McGavin, as well as new characters played by Benny Safdie, Bad Bunny, Travis Kelce, and roles for his wife and his two daughters.
