“The audience just ate him up”: why does Bill Murray hate Adam Sandler so much?
The strange duality at the heart of the Adam Sandler phenomenon is that, despite making many of the most reviled and critically panned comedies of the last three decades, there aren’t many people in Hollywood who have a bad word to say about him.
For all intents and purposes, the ‘Sandman’ is an absolute gem. He keeps his friends gainfully employed, if he enjoys working with someone once, he’ll make them a regular part of his repertory, and he’s navigated his entire career without being caught up in a controversy, scandal, or bout of negative publicity.
Everybody likes Adam Sandler, but the same can’t be said of his filmography. He’s arguably the jewel in the crown of Netflix’s roster of original movies, and even his legacy titles can be relied on to draw in an at-home audience, never mind the billions of dollars his countless comedy outings have racked up at the box office.
On the other side of the coin, most of them are shite. He’s a great dramatic actor, which he’s proven several times over, but he’s also the entirely deserving recipient of nine Razzies from a frankly mind-boggling 42 nominations, which includes the wretched Jack and Jill shattering records by claiming more of the industry’s most unwanted trophies than any other picture.
Some viewers can’t get enough of Sandler’s flicks, and others would be more than happy if they never saw another one of them ever again, but nobody hates him. Well, apart from maybe Bill Murray, but he hates a lot of people, so the Happy Madison head honcho is merely another name on an ever-increasing list than a mortal nemesis.
At various points, the ‘Murricane’ has either feuded or become involved in a war of words with the likes of Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis, Richard Dreyfuss, Anjelica Huston, Lucy Liu, Richard Donner, Laura Ziskin, and McG, with the latter making such a stellar impression that the actor and comedian said he “deserved to die.”
After cutting his teeth on Saturday Night Live, Murray became one of the biggest stars to ever emerge from the weekly staple, but when he returned almost 20 years later to find Sandler, Chris Farley, and Rob Schneider as three of the current generation’s brightest talents, he wasn’t entirely enthused with their style.
“The least of the hate was to me,” Schneider gleefully pointed out on Sirius XM, which he wore as a badge of honour. “I took great pleasure in that he hated me less, because he’s my hero.” That doesn’t mean he didn’t despise him, it just meant that he loathed him less than the other two, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.
“He really hated Sandler, too,” the Happy Madison regular added, theorising that Murray wasn’t “really into the groove” of the star’s comedic stylings. “Sandler was just committed to it, and just like, as soon as he would get on, you could see the audience just ate him up,” Schneider said, and it sounds as though the Ghostbuster detests Sandler for a very familiar reason; he didn’t understand his comedy and thought he was a total and utter buffoon, with bizarre songs and stupid voices evidently not tickling his funny bone.
