Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler re-team for romantic comedy

Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler have starred opposite each other twice, and now it appears the duo is pairing up for the third time. Let's hope this romantic comedy is more like The Wedding Singer and less like 50 First Dates. Barrymore and Sandler will play two single parents who have a disastrous blind date, then find themselves trapped at a family resort with their respective kids together. At least in the movie world, this sounds like a recipe for falling in love.

Frank Coraci, who has made a career out of working with funny men, will helm. He directed Sandler in Click, The Waterboy, and The Wedding Singer, and Kevin James in his recent films The Zookeeper and Here Comes the Boom. The script was penned by Ivan Winchell, who has written for a number of sitcoms, and Claire Sera, who has collaborated with Winchell on a couple of IMDB-listed but as-yet unproduced screenplays.

From a demographic perspective, pairing up Sandler and Barrymore makes perfect sense. Sandler has the juvenile humor-loving dudes who have grown up with his comed and now likely have families themselves. That's one reason high school reunion-themed Grown Ups did so well. Barrymore hasn't had a big hit in a few years, but she's also been making and appearing in smaller films. Her style is more sweet than crude, which will help broaden the appeal of the romantic comedy. The blended family twist gets my approval, but in the struggling rom-com genre, it will be up to the actors and script if they can make the audience fall for the "I-hate-you-until-I-love-you" game one more time.

 

'That's My Boy' trailer teams up Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg as father and son

Right below The Hollywood Reporter's posting about the trailer for the most recent Adam Sandler picture, That's My Boy, is a link to the "Teflon Actor Awards," with Sandler in the top spot as the "critic-proof comic." His movies have been rated just 29% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, yet they have grossed $1.3 billion. Based on that information, who cares what I think of the trailer ?

The R-rated comedy comes out on June 15th, and it appears to be aiming for the Bad Teacher and The Hangover crowd. After looking at both the green-band and red-band trailer, I'd say it definitely deserves its R rating. So much so, that the filmmakers appear to have hedged on their racy content by filming a number of scenes with an actress in both revealing clothing and marginally less revealing clothing. I guess when key plot points take place in a strip club, that's what you have to do.

That's My Boy appears to be a little bit like Meet the Parents in reverse. Adam Sandler plays a young dad (as in the mother was a teacher who went to prison) who raised his son (Andy Samberg) with some pretty laissez-faire methods. Just as the tax man comes calling, he discovers his son is wealthy and about to marry--a perfect time for him to drop in and reconnect. I like that the story seems to be taking place from Sandler's perspective rather than the designated uptight person's perspective (Samberg). That's one thing I found trying about Ben Stiller's performance in Meet the Parents. Sandler always plays juvenile characters, so it's a nice riff on his star persona to have him play an immature father. Samberg, who really does look incredibly like Sandler, gets to be the one calling Sandler out on all his crazy antics--and maybe lightening up a bit.

Although I laughed along with Sandler's childish humor in Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and The Wedding Singer, I'm still recovering from the 2010 monstrosity that was Grown Ups. That's My Boy doesn't look great even in the trailer, but it has some novelty and infusion of fresh comic talent with the addition of Samberg. If tradition holds, the more this comedy bombs with critics the better it will do with audiences. Still, I hope that That's My Boy gives some of Sandler's old fans just a little bit of that humor that we used to enjoy so much.

 

 

'Funny People' looks out for number one

By Sarah Sluis

While almost everyone in the industry thinks Funny People (3,008 screens) will be able to grab the number one spot this weekend, its exact gross is more uncertain, with estimates ranging from $20 to $30 million. The film itself is similarly ambiguous, uneven and not immediately satisfying. It's the kind of movie you keep on thinking about after the lights go up. While I liked it far less than The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up, it's a film I would want to revisit a few more Judd Apatow pictures down the line. Since Universal announced today that it signed a three-picture deal with Apatow, including an option for him to make films outside the studio, it looks as though the writer-director will have several more chances to add to his body of work. FJI's Executive Editor Kevin Lally called the death-centered comedy Apatow's "most ambitious film, which is both a good and bad thing for the audience. Good, because he's not playing it safe and repeating himself; bad, because the movie falls short of fulfilling its risky ambitions." I suspect this movie will underperform, but its risk-taking increases my respect for Apatow as a director.

Going to battle against the numerous kid films in release, Aliens in the Attic will open in 3,106 theatres. It's expected to perform below Harry Potter 6 and G-Force, making it a likely candidate for the number four spot. With its horror-lite tone and High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale, the movie is likely to do best among young boys.

Horror film The Collector will scare audiences in 1,325 theatres. While the movie wasn't screened for critics, its trailer has rather striking visuals, and the tale comes from the writers of the Saw sequels. The premise is intriguingly moralistic: a thief breaks into a house, only to discover that the family has been held captive by something or someone far more sinister--and he helps save the family he intended to rob.

On the specialty front, documentary The Cove opens in 4 theatres. The filmmaking activists pursue their goal--to record the inhumane slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan--Ocean's Eleven style, adding suspense and allowing the audience to viacriously join the crusade. Vampire film Thirst opens on 4 screens. I adored the "cinematic maelstrom of bloodlust and sensual obsession projected through Park Chan-wook's runaway imagination," but its graphic, depraved representation can be difficult to watch and is certainly not for everyone. Adam, a "sensitive but not sentimental" romance in which one party has Asperger's, opened Wednesday on 4 screens, and Lorna's Silence, a Danish film from the award-wnning Dardennes Brothers about the relationship between a drug addict and the woman who married him for immigration reasons, will appear on 6 screens in New York and L.A. For family audiences and those seeking specialty fare (I would almost count Funny People in that category), it's another jam-packed summer weekend.