A lot can be, and has been, said, about Adam Sandler’s career over the years. Sandler himself has joked about the bad reviews his films often get, which is to say bad. But it can’t be argued that there are a lot of people that like Adam Sandler’s movies because they clearly watch them. In fact, they apparently watch them more than just about anything else on Netflix, as Murder Mystery 2 had the second-best opening for a comedy in the history of the streaming service.
Murder Mystery 2 only dropped a few days ago but Netflix has revealed that the film’s opening weekend saw over 42 million views. According to Variety, this makes it the number two comedy film for Netflix based on opening weekend numbers. The film is also, obviously, the number one movie on the platform overall right now, and the release of the sequel was also enough to help propel the first Murder Mystery into the number two overall spot. It seems that a lot of people either hadn’t seen the first one or wanted to rewatch it before the sequel.
Back when Netflix made its first multi-million dollar deal to bring multiple Adam Sandler movies to the service, nobody was quite sure what to make of it. Netflix was only just beginning to produce its own content, and Sandler, while a major name, had as many hits as he did misses when it came to the traditional box office. But the deal has clearly been a big one for both sides, and it has continued long past its original conclusion. Murder Mystery 2 marks the 10th movie for Netflix that Sandler has starred in (if you include his comedy special), and that doesn’t include the other films Happy Madison has produced that don’t include Sandler.
Adam Sandler still isn’t beloved by most critics, at least when he’s making the sorts of comedies that have continued to be produced for Netflix. The films tend to get lukewarm reviews at best, and Murder Mystery 2 is no exception. Whether audiences would buy a ticket to see these sorts of movies we’ll never know, but clearly, people with a Netflix subscription have no problem sitting down to watch such a movie since they’ve essentially paid for it already anyway.
Such a successful opening for Murder Mystery 2 is all but certain to lead to more Netflix movies for Sandler, perhaps even a Murder Mystery 3. Considering the way the sequel boosted the profile of the original, one can imagine a third film making Murder Mystery movies the top three films on Netflix all at once when another movie comes out. And of course, Sandler would get to visit another beautiful location for production, which isn’t the worst reason to make a movie.
