Twenty-five years ago, Adam Sandler‘s Big Daddy wiped the floor with the competition.
Sony released the comedy feature from director Dennis Dugan (Happy Gilmore) on June 25, 1999. The film opened to $41 million domestically en route to collecting $234 million globally ($442 million today) and holding the title as Sandler’s highest-grossing title domestically until Hotel Transylvania 2 in 2015.
Big Daddy centers on Sonny Koufax (Sandler), an unmotivated law school graduate who attempts to prove himself by adopting 5-year-old Julian (Cole and Dylan Sprouse) when the boy shows up at his doorstep. The cast includes Jon Stewart, Joey Lauren Adams, Rob Schneider and Leslie Mann.
During separate conversations with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Sid Ganis and writer Steve Franks (credited for the screenplay alongside Sandler and Tim Herlihy) discuss how Disneyland helped inspire the project and recall Chris Farley lobbying for the lead role. They also talk the Sprouse twins connecting off-camera with Sandler on their first feature film and why not everyone at the studio was immediately convinced of Sandler’s star power.
Rob Schneider, Cole/Dylan Sprouse and Adam Sandler in Big Daddy.
Courtesy of Everett
Steve, I believe you were working at Disneyland when you wrote the script?
Steve Franks: I wrote this as a spec while I was doing two jobs, but Disneyland was one of them. I was still a grad student in film at Loyola, and I ended up writing it while I was working in the Tiki Room, which is the perfect place to write a script if you’re on the Disney clock. I had been working there about eight years, from undergrad right into grad school.
A genesis of the idea was that most of the people I was hired with were off going to real jobs, and I had dreams of making it in entertainment, but there was a solid chance that I could be a guy who’s 30 years…
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