Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider Have Starred in a Shocking Amount of Movies Together
Love them or hate them, moviegoers have certainly noticed that Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider appear on screen together an awful lot. Not since the days of Abbott and Costello has a comedy team appeared in so many movies together.
Unlike the classic duo from the 1930s, however, Sandler and Schneider rarely play evenly matched parts, often instead appearing as smaller characters in each other’s movies. Let’s take a look at their 20-year movie-making run.
When did Sandler and Schneider first meet?
It’d be easy to assume that Sandler and Schneider first met during their time on Saturday Night Live, after all, they both started working for the show in 1990, but they actually met years before.
In a 2018 interview with Life & Style Weekly, Schneider shares that he went to see Sandler’s first comedy show after Sandler moved to Los Angeles in the late 1980s. Schneider admits that he and Sandler were the only two people laughing at Sandler’s jokes, but that after the show Schneider took him out for a beer and told him, “You’re going to be huge.”
SNL is where the two really began to become well known, with Schneider coming into his own first with his copy machine character, and Sandler garnering attention a little later for his original comedy songs.
In an interview with Howard Stern, Sandler admits in the early days they would go out of their way to eat at Planet Hollywood to be recognized by fans, but Schneider was the bigger star at the time.
Which of their movies was the biggest success?
The Waterboy was released in 1998 and was the first time the two were in a movie together. Sandler was the star of the film and Schneider had little more than a cameo as a townie encouragingly yelling, “You can do it!”
The phrase became a running gag in future films. This movie was the start of many more appearances together.
For box office bucks, the winners are in the favor of Sandler-led moves with Big Daddy (1999), Click (2006), and Grown Ups (2010) coming out on top.
When it comes to ratings, Sandler still leads. None of their joint films rates better on IMDB than 50 First Dates. This 2004 romantic comedy featured Sandler as player Henry Roth who, after all of his running around, meets a woman (Drew Barrymore) he wants to be with for the long haul.
The only problem is, she doesn’t remember who he is with the start of each new day. Schneider plays Henry’s best friend Ula, a kooky Hawaiian local with too many kids and a little too much interest in Henry’s love life.
The banter between the two of them is one of the strengths of the film, but there are so many great characters in the movie, Schneider gets a bit overshadowed.
Which Sandler/ Schneider movies were the biggest flops?
If you look at the ratings on IMDB, there’s no doubt that overall, films with Sandler as the lead were more highly rated than any of Schneider’s. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999) is the only Schneider-led film that even comes close. Overall, Schneider may have had the most fame to start, but was soon outshined by Sandler.
Sandler, it seems, even outshined Schneider with not only the best movies but the easy winner for the absolute worst. Few comedy films were as hated as Sandler’s 2011 film Jack and Jill, where he plays Jack Sadelstein, and his twin sister Jill.
Peter Bradshaw, reviewer for the Guardian compares the film to a gruesome scalping saying, “There is a type of film so bad that it is actually scary… Adam Sandler’s new comedy Jack and Jill is such a film.”
True fans must love them
All told, the two have appeared in around 18 films together, which means that despite some of the less-than-stellar reception of their films, some fans out there must love their partnership.
For a while, they were averaging a film or two a year, but there was a noticeable slow-down of Schneider in Sandler’s films after 2011. During these years, Schneider took some time with his family and to focus on his own stand-up career.
Schneider’s own movie stardom hasn’t kept pace with Sandlers but he did briefly have his own show, Real Rob, from 2015-2017.
In keeping with tradition, Sandler appeared on the show but played himself this time. Far from having any ill will over Sandlers success, Schneider is grateful to have been a part of it.
It’s clear from interviews that Schneider knows he’s in Sandler’s shadow, and he doesn’t seem bothered by it, telling Howard Stern, “He’s been nice enough to include me in his gigantic success story.”
