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Inot In 2014, Adam Sandler made what seemed like a very dubious choice: turn his back on the big Hollywood studios and go work for Netflix. A few years earlier, Sandler was one of the studios’ most trusted earners. His production company, Happy Madison, had had a long and successful partnership with Sony Pictures, making top-notch movies that made big money – Mr. Deeds, Anger management, You’re not messing with the Zohan, and The adults.
But the relationship had started to unravel as some of Sandler’s recent films (notably, Jack and Jill, in which Sandler put on a dress, and This is my boy, in which he played Andy Samberg’s father) had failed. A Sony email hack later revealed that the suits said things like, “He’s not the guy he once was and no one can make that better for him.” Sony has apparently rejected Sandler’s upcoming film, Mixed, in which he reunited with his frequent costar Drew Barrymore. So Sandler brought him to Warner Bros., where he also underperformed. Executives at Warners blamed the good weather for the film’s failure, but Hollywood believed Sandler’s brand of comedy had become obsolete.
Four months later, Sandler and Netflix announced a surprising deal – he would take his next four photos for the streaming service. Sandler would turn his attention to. . . TV and Movies? It looked like he was washed. But Sandler turned out to have excellent foresight: it wasn’t just his comedies that died out in theaters, it was comedy films in general, with the exception of the genre wrapped up in animated films. or superhero style shows. Sandler’s movies turned out to be perfect for Netflix – his comedy with Jennifer Aniston, Murder mystery, was the streamer’s No.1 title in 2019 in the U.S. Major filmmakers such as Alfonso Cuarón and Martin Scorsese followed Sandler’s lead with Oscar-caliber projects. Now, no one considers Netflix a demotion.
This month, Sandler’s friend and colleague Kevin James, who has starred in several big-money Happy Madison movies, joins him on Netflix, which in recent years has grown to become the world’s largest entertainment company. Hollywood except Disney. Netflix’s strategy for world domination of entertaining every niche imaginable has had a few shortcomings: few of their efforts are standard four-camera family sitcoms of the kind that were once a staple on CBS.
James is here to take care of that. Its wide, mid-road styling is on display in The crew, in which he plays the savvy leader of a NASCAR team built around a sexy but brainless young driver (Freddie Stroma) in the midst of feuds with another team member, the daughter of James’ character (Jillian Mueller ). James is after comedy that “inspires and uplifts,” he says during a Zoom call with reporters to promote the series, which debuts Monday (on the race calendar, it’s the first weekday after the Daytona 500).
In the new show, James sticks to his genius and harmless brand of comedy (the first scene sets the pace when the battle crew members give up everything to be part of the one venture that everyone can get on with. hear – salute the flag for the national anthem). But he notes that The crew is kind of a change of pace for him because it’s a workplace comedy as opposed to a home comedy like his previous endeavors King of queens and Kevin can wait (whose showrunner was our National review colleague Rob Long).
Under showrunner Jeff Lowell, The crew is made with the enthusiastic participation of NASCAR and promises to be steeped in insider detail. James says he learned a lot of fascinating things about the racing game, which he has followed from an early age and that his favorite driver was Richard Petty. As a child, James even dressed like Petty once for Halloween: “with the cowboy hat, the mustache and the glasses.” Still, other sports were more important to him growing up. Ten years ago, however, he was invited to be Grand Marshal at a NASCAR event and was amazed at the energy level, which can only be evoked by TV coverage: “It’s crazy when you go, ”he said. “You don’t know how much this sport is devoted to. And I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t. A live event is. . . a completely different world, RVs moving in, it’s tailgating at the center. . . athletes, sponsors, pit team, teams, competitiveness, fans. . . it’s a crazy event.
It feels liberated by the management style of Netflix, which comes down to: We trust you. “It’s a lot different and a lot better for me, for sure,” he says. With networked sitcoms, James bemoans “what you have to go through to get ratings from everyone and all the way down the line and everyone has to weigh and you have to please everyone.” It’s not uncommon for costumes to signal a joke in advance to potentially scare advertisers. But “Netflix is just doing their thing, they give you the reins and they let you go,” he says. “When you worry about ‘Hey, can we do this or do that’ they say, ‘Just do it’, ‘Absolutely’.”
The crew is designed to be an easy watch that doesn’t demand too many audiences – it’s basically Netflix’s Monday Night CBS sitcom – and James’ comedy won’t alienate anyone. I asked him about the dark clouds raining over the political correctness sleet on Comedyland and he said he was a little worried about it, but only as an observer. “My comedy is not affected [because] I don’t cross too many lines, ”he says. But “it can be difficult when you’re trying to do comedy and you’re so censored. It is therefore a difficult area. It really is. But I see things opening up a bit and getting better and people are able to do what they’re doing. . . the point is to laugh and nod and have a good time and we have to. And if we dissect everything too much, there is nothing we can do. James will let the others handle the tricky things, but he proves that there is still a place for comedy without controversy.
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