‘Happy Gilmore 2’ makes the perfect shot, made entirely in New Jersey
This week, Netflix revealed that during the making of Happy Gilmore 2, Netflix’s hit sequel to the 1996 Adam Sandler cult classic Happy Gilmore, the mega streaming service was thankful to call New Jersey home.
Over the three-month production for the movie, which turned out to be the biggest U.S. opening weekend of all time for a Netflix film – and the largest opening for any Adam Sandler film ever with 46.7M global views, Netflix filmed in 45 locationsacross the Garden State. Locales included the aptly named Ideal Beach in Middletown, the Hackensack Performing Arts Center, and seven different golf courses and centers across the state, such as Montclair Golf Club in West Orange and Fiddler’s Elbow Country Club in Bedminster. (Note: No fairways were harmed in the making of this movie.)
Local production crews benefited from the innovative cleantech used on set, including clean and quiet batteries powering many of the golf course scenes, instead of using noisy and polluting diesel generators.
On and off the course, Netflix leaned heavily on New Jerseyans throughout production, hiring more than 400 crew and nearly 3,000 extras from the Garden State. On screen, Happy may be rough around the edges. But off screen, they embraced their surroundings, boosting the local economy through hiring more than 400 local vendors — cold cut combo, anyone? — and booking dozens of local hotels and accommodations. (Unsurprisingly, Grandma Gilmore’s retirement home did not make the list.)
To celebrate Happy Gilmore 2’s release, Netflix hosted a screening at Basie Center Cinemas in Red Bank, New Jersey, for state and local officials and community partners.
Many of the guests in attendance have been instrumental partners in teeing up Netflix’s planned $1B investment in nearby Fort Monmouth, where producers recently broke ground on Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth. Once completed, the more than 292-acre property will feature 12 sound stages across nearly 500,000 square feet and will create both permanent and construction jobs in NJ.
And Happy Gilmore 2 is far from the streaming service’s only big swing in the Garden State. Netflix is playing the long game, having recently completed production on five more movies and series that were shot in New Jersey:
- A House of Dynamite, starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson;
- The Beast in Me, starring Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys;
- Office Romance, starring Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein;
- The Rip, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck; and,
- The Whisper Man, starring Robert De Niro, with another 12 recently greenlit titles on the way.
So get ready to tee off with Happy Gilmore 2 (and the whole Sandlerverse), now streaming on Netflix.
And if you haven’t seen Happy Gilmore 2 on Netflix yet, this writer is giving it 4.5 out of 5 stars. It’s not mandatory – but it would be helpful if you had already seen the original 1996 release – just for background purposes. Check out the trailer below!
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(Source: Netflix)
(Cover photo: Image credit: X)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today
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