Why Wouldn't Shaq Join Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Crew?

Those of you who frequent FilmDrunk know that I have a strange fascination with Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison crew, in that I don’t know how – other than riding on the very worn down coattails of Sandler’s career – these guys keep pumping out films. For instance, three of his next films are That’s My Boy (featuring Rex Ryan), a remake of Summer School, and Candyland, which is based on the board game. If you read that last sentence and thought, “Those sound great” then you need to quit wasting your time here and go bankrupt a movie studio.

But the big project on the horizon for Sandler and Co. is a sequel to the 2010 hit Grown Ups, which earned more than $270 million worldwide. Early word is that Taylor Lautner has already joined the cast – featuring Sandler, Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock and the rest of the Happy Madison crew – and now Shaquille O’Neal will also appear in the film.

O’Neal recently spoke with GQ about life after the NBA and one of the things that came up was his hilariously awful film, Kazaam, of which he actually offered a very reasonable explanation.

I was a medium-level juvenile delinquent from Newark who always dreamed about doing a movie. Someone said, “Hey, here’s $7 million, come in and do this genie movie.” What am I going to say, no? So I did it.

Granted, he didn’t elaborate to touch on why he made Steel, but I’ll assume the answer would have either been money or extreme heroin addiction.

In case you never saw Grown Ups, I declared it far and away the worst film of 2010, and it even inspired me to create an exemption for Sandler’s films for all future Worst Movies of the Year features. And while I don’t expect Shaq to be starring in Schindler’s List 2 or Philadelphia: The Beginning, I wouldn’t mind seeing him discover how to say no for once.

×