Adam Sandler has revealed that Carl Weathers was meant to have a big role to play in Happy Gilmore 2, and the actor's death resulted in a major rewrite.
"We had a painful change. Carl Weathers had a massive part," Sandler said in a new interview with Collider. Weathers died in February 2024 at the age of 76. "I would talk to Carl, and we were excited, and then Carl passed away. We had to rewrite a lot of the stuff, and even what the story was. We made a lot of nice references to how great Chubbs was in the movie. That was the biggest change."
The first Happy Gilmore movie was released back in 1996 and follows Sandler's titular character, a boorish failed hockey player who discovers he has a talent for golf and attempts to win enough money through tournaments to stop the foreclosure of his grandmother's house. Weathers played Derick "Chubbs" Peterson, who was a former pro golfer and Happy's mentor and lost his hand in an alligator attack.
Chubbs actually dies in the original movie: he falls out of a window, startled, when Happy gifts him with the head of the alligator who bit off his hand. However, that was going to be worked into the sequel. "In the first version that we came up with, he had a son. He was coming back to me a lot in my dreams, and he had a son who was mad at Happy for causing the death of daddy," Sandler explained.
Alongside Sandler, Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald, Ben Stiller, and Dennis Dugan all return for the sequel, and they're joined by new cast member Benny Safdie.
Happy Gilmore 2 arrives on Netflix on July 25. In the meantime, check out our guide to the best Netflix comedies streaming now to add to your watchlist.
