I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the 1987 Mark Harmon-starring Summer School, not because it was a good movie, but because it had a dog in sunglasses on the cover, which is always radical (he was sort of the proto-Marmaduke). The sad news is, that dog is most likely long dead, filling up a grave somewhere next to Mark Harmon, and now Paramount is pissing on his dog corpse by hiring Adam Sandler to produce the remake.
Happy Madison, the production banner run by Adam Sandler and Jack Giaraputo [that’s Spanish for “Jar of puto” -Ed], is in negotiations to come aboard to produce Paramount’s planned remake of Summer School.
School was a light 1987 comedy directed by Carl Reiner that starred Mark Harmon as a gym teacher forced to cancel his summer plans and teach an English class filled with oddballs and rebels. The film also featured a young Courtney Thorne-Smith.
Sandler is not attached to star in the project, which soon will hire writers.
Paramount has been trying to remake the film since 2005, but the project has been stuck in development detention. [THR]
Wait, did you say development DETENTION?
Between this and the Candyland movie that he’s supposedly producing and starring in (note: I’ll believe it when I see it), it seems Adam Sandler finally may have figured out that it’s easier make other peoples’ crappy movies than your own. Or as I like to call it, “Ratnering.”
Also, has anyone at Paramount actually looked into Sandler’s track record of movies that he’s produced but not starred in? Let’s recap:
- Bucky Larson: $2.5 million lifetime gross, 0% RottenTomatoes
- Grandma’s Boy: $6 million lifetime gross, 18% RottenTomatoes
- Paul Blart: $182 million lifetime gross, 33% RottenTomatoes
- The House Bunny: $70 million lifetime gross, 41% RottenTomatoes
- Strange Wilderness: $6.9 million lifetime gross, 0% RottenTomatoes
- Benchwarmers, $64 million lifetime gross, 12% RottenTomatoes
- Deuce Bigelow European Gigelo, $44 million lifetime gross, 9% RottenTomatoes
- Dickie Roberts, $22.7 million lifetime gross, 23% RottenTomatoes
- Master of Disguise, $43 million, 2% RottenTomatoes
- Joe Dirt, $30 million lifetime gross (budget: $34 million), 11% RottenTomatoes
I’ll be honest, I had no idea The House Bunny or Benchwarmers made that much money when I started making this list. Nonetheless, one of the most surefire ways to lose money on a movie is to have Sandler produce and not have him or Kevin James star. …So I guess we can expect to see Kevin James teaching summer school†. That actually makes complete sense, sadly. I can’t wait for his earnest heart to heart with Gabourey Sidibe about how it’s okay to keep your t-shirt on at the beach.
†Though it could always be Peter Dante. He has a pretty solid track record of being Sandler’s go-to whenever they need someone with a tan.