The high school buds have moved back to their Connecticut hometown, so you know what that means. Sandler may win the occasional Razzie, but he almost never loses money. This is what’s called laughing all the way to the bank. The studio produced Paul Blart: Mall Cop for $25 million, making $225 million. A typical Happy Madison production, in fact, runs $80 million or less and grosses more than $200 million. “Ring-a-ding-ding!” as Frank used to say. The first Grown Ups cost $80 million and rang up $271 million. His movies may not earn many stars, but they routinely make staggering profits. There’s a difference between the two when it comes to their acumen as entrepreneurs, however: Sandler is by far the savvier businessman. In 1999, Sandler founded Happy Madison Productions for the same reasons. In 1960, Sinatra founded Reprise Records so he and his friends could enjoy greater artistic control and a fatter percentage of profits. (Sandler has never gone longer than five years without a Razzie nomination.) They routinely cast each other in their films, sharing the wealth along with the laughs, indifferent to the opinion of critics. Just like Sinatra and his buddies, Sandler and his pals are in the enviable position of having the muscle to do their thing for fun and profit. (A similar fate appears to have befallen longtime Sandler sidekick Rob Schneider. The core was Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford, until Sinatra excommunicated Lawford for mishandling a situation involving President Kennedy. Sinatra’s reboot featured entertainers who frequently performed in Vegas and partied just as professionally. This prehistoric Pack was rounded out by Hollywood legends Rex Harrison, Nat King Cole, Cesar Romero and Errol Flynn - though technically Romero may have forfeited his Hollywood legend status, since he’ll forever be remembered as the Joker from the TV series “Batman.” But I digress. The oldest Rat Pack known to science was led by none other than Humphrey Bogart. History’s first recorded example, in fact, predates Old Blue Eyes. Each new generation gets its own, more or less. It’s not that far-fetched a cultural observation. Not only is Sandler the new Sinatra, he and cohorts David Spade, Kevin James, Rob Schneider and Chris Rock, I contend, are the contemporary correlative of the Rat Pack. Well, strap yourself in the ride is about to get wilder. There are Hitchcock films less disquieting.
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