10 Years Ago, Adam Sandler's Biggest Waste Of Potential Released

Adam Sandler has made his fair share of stinkers over the years, but his 10-year-old disappointment is the biggest missed opportunity of his career. Sandler got his start as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, where he got a lot of laughs playing larger-than-life goofballs. Like many of his fellow SNL alums, Sandler would soon begin appearing in films.

After making a few small appearances in lesser-known movies, Sandler’s film career exploded in 1995 with the release of Billy Madison. He would soon follow it with another classic, Happy Gilmore, and those two films would establish the tone of his cinematic career for years. Blending smart humor with sophomoric jokes, Sandler captured the slacker zeitgeist of the ’90s.

Sandler would continue to make one or two comedy films a year for the better part of two decades, usually scoring big at the box office but earning derision from critics. Meanwhile, the mostly-comedic performer began branching out into drama, and films like Punch Drunk Love showed that he was more than capable of doing both.

Though he’s on the upswing now, there was a dark period in Sandler’s career where his output became cynical. Films like Jack and Jill had none of the same goofy charm, and viewers began turning on the legendary funnyman. One film from that period should have been among his best modern films, but it was a major missed opportunity.

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Adam Sandler’s Pixels Wasn’t A Massive Hit

It Was Supposed To Be A Major Blockbuster

2015’s Pixels had all the makings of a bona fide blockbuster, but it failed to leave an impression on the audience. Sandler leads the cast, and he’s joined by frequent collaborator Kevin James, and other established stars like Michelle Monaghan and Peter Dinklage. The action-based premise was something new for Sandler, though it still leaned toward humor.

Naturally, it had a massive budget, and needed to use every penny to bring the video game characters to life in the real world. Sadly, that inflated price tag didn’t help when the movie went to theaters, and it performed admirably, but way below expectations. It continued a downward trend for Sandler, whose movies were financially volatile in the 2010s.

The Hollywood Reporter noted that the film was made for $110 million, though it can be assumed that those numbers only factor in production costs, and not marketing and advertising. With those additional expenses (plus any backend points for stars like Sandler) the movie likely cost nearly $200 million all told.

This means it probably had a razor-thin profit margin, because the film grossed around $240 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo). Pixels opened the weekend of July 24, 2025, and finished second behind Marvel’s Ant-Man which was already in its second week. Throughout its entire theatrical run, Pixels would struggle to stay in the top 10.

Pixels’ Premise Had So Much Potential

Nerds Vs. Aliens Sounded Like A Great Movie

Amidst low-effort movies like Jack and Jill and Blended, Pixels is a unique addition to Sandler’s filmography from the 2010s. The comedic star was struggling to find a hit, and the video game movie could have been just the thing to revive his slumping career. The movie had a lot going for it, though it wasted every opportunity.

The idea behind the film involves aliens attacking Earth because they think video games are real and see them as a sign of aggression from humans. The U.S. government assembles a team of legendary gamers to counteract the threat, including Sandler’s Sam Brenner. It sets up a lot of opportunities for redemption arcs, and even some gaming humor.

Pixels was shaping up to be a love-letter to gaming

What’s more, the movie uses real video game icons like Pac-Man and Galaga, and it would have been very easy for them to create some fictional games in order to avoid paying for the intellectual property. With so much nostalgia and goodwill toward those classic games, Pixels was shaping up to be a love-letter to gaming.

Why Adam Sandler’s Pixels Didn’t Work As Well As It Should Have

Every Part Of The Movie Is A Lazy Mess

Despite its strong setup, Pixels is shockingly lazy and uninspired. The script is a contrived mess that only serves to get the characters from one cheap nostalgic pop to the next, and any character motivation is completely wasted. Sandler and his co-stars sleepwalk through the action sequences, and it devolves into CGI eyestrain by the end.

Films are typically allowed one or two coincidences to get the story going, but Pixels is jam-packed with so many convenient plot contrivances that it sometimes feels like it’s being made up on the spot. The use of recognizable intellectual property goes nowhere, and the movie really doesn’t have anything to say about the games themselves.

Pixels feels like a movie written about gamers, and not necessarily one made by people who actually enjoy video games. The redemption arcs are groan-inducing in their simplicity, and its worst sin is that it doesn’t have any fun with its cheesy concept. It expects the audience to accept everything at face value without giving them a reason to care.

Adam Sandler is slotted in as an everyman type, but he is mostly given nothing funny to work with. Even if he isn’t playing the same ridiculous and juvenile characters he used to, Sandler is massively underutilized in the film. He’s a name on the marquee only, and the rest of the cast does a lot of the heavy lifting.