Kyle Newacheck on Bringing Happy Gilmore 2 to Life

Kyle Newacheck sat down with Kyle Meredith to talk about the long-awaited Happy Gilmore 2, which brings Adam Sandler’s hockey-stick-wielding everyman back to the green nearly 30 years after the original. The Workaholics alum and Murder Mystery director had the unenviable task of balancing nostalgia for one of the most quoted comedies of the ’90s with a modern polish. “It’s a comedy-first movie,” Newacheck explains. “There’s no genre overlay. It’s a family, fun, heartfelt comedy.” Listen to the episode now.

Newacheck calls the original Happy Gilmore “a fantastic building” and compares the sequel to being asked to construct a new wing on an iconic house. “There’s already so much love baked in,” he says, but he knew he had a winner when he read the screenplay: “You can’t improv a good story -- this script had it. It made me feel something — not just the laughs, but the heart.” He also speaks about striking the balance between the '90s and now: “We’re smoother at filmmaking, sure. But I didn’t want to lose that looseness, that joy. I wanted people quoting this the same way they quoted Anchorman and Billy Madison.”

Of course, part of the magic was bringing in new blood, including a surprisingly sharp performance from Bad Bunny. “Take one, I’m watching him thinking, ‘Wait — I believe this guy. Am I really feeling this much on take one?’” Newacheck recalls. “Bad Bunny is that good.”

Listen to Kyle Newacheck chat about all this and more our watch it on YouTube. Please take the time to like, review, and subscribe to KMW wherever you get your podcasts, and keep up to date with all our series by following the Consequence Podcast Network.

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