Summary

• Adam Sandler and Kevin James showcase real-life friendship in comedy collaborations on and off-screen.
• Sandler has taken on a producer role in many James' solo films, extending their professional partnership.
• Despite mixed critical reception, their t projects have been successful with audiences, leading to box office hits.

Though there are many notable film duos in history, the various Adam Sandler and Kevin James movies highlight the two stars' real-life friendship. Both men have acted and produced, but they got their big break doing stand-up comedy. From there, the two continued collaborating on comedy films that brought them together, on and off-screen. While critics don't often love their collaborations, they continue to be a hit with fans. Sandler is the bigger star and has been around longer, but James followed a similar path.

Both men became stars on television, with Saturday Night Live and James on the sitcom King of Queens. They first shared the screen in I Know Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Their slapstick brand of comedy and boisterous performances seemed like a perfect match, and they began working together frequently with collaborations that continue to this day. However, some are more memorable than others. Over time, Sandler helped James by producing his solo movies, even if the veteran actor was nowhere to be seen on screen.

14 Zookeeper (2011)

Adam Sandler Produced This Kevin James Movie

Zookeeper is the only collaboration between these two stars where they both appear and Kevin James is the movie's lead. Sandler doesn't appear on-screen, only lending his voice to a talking monkey. The film has James playing a kind zookeeper who learns animals can talk (but doesn't, since it is against the animal code). His girlfriend Stephanie (Leslie Bibb) breaks up with him because of his job and when the animals learn Griffin is considering leaving, they plot to help reunite them.

James throws himself into the slapstick bits to get some laughs.

Talking animal movies are a tough sell, but Zookeeper has some big names in these voice roles. The actors involved here include Nick Nolte, Sylvester Stallone, Judd Apatow, Cher, Jon Favreau, Maya Rudolph, Don Rickles, Jim Breuer, Ken Jeong, Donnie Wahlberg, and Adam Sandler (as Donad, a tufted capuchin). James throws himself into the slapstick bits to get some laughs, but the movie ended up critically panned, with a 14% at Rotten Tomatoes and only 41% from fans.

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13 Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015)

Adam Sandler Produces The Kevin James Sequel

Adam Sandler has done a lot over his career when it comes to helping his friends with their movies. Even if Sandler is not in the movie, if he serves as a producer, it goes a long way in helping the project get made. In the case of Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, the final result wasn't beloved, but it gave Kevin James a sequel for his popular solo outing. The movie takes the action to Las Vegas, where Blart goes to a security officers' convention, which he attends with his daughter.

He then gets involved in stopping another high-profile robbery, this time at a Las Vegas casino. The film did decent at the box office, breaking $107 million (via Box Office Mojo). However, it was a critical bomb, earning six Razzie nominations, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Director. It also has a low 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and fans were not any kinder, rating it 34% rotten.

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12 Grown Ups 2 (2013)

Adam Sandler's Summer Movie Sequel With His Friends

Amazingly, it took until 2013 for Adam Sandler to make a sequel. Grown Ups 2 continues the original characters' lives, three years later. Lenny (Sandler) moves back to his hometown to be close to friends and family.

This includes Kevin James' Eric Lamonsoff returning, with Chris Rock and David Spade filling out the ensemble of funny men. Given the sheer talent involved, it is quite a letdown that the movie sticks with cliché and immature jokes that fail to take advantage of the hilarious cast .

Despite this movie (and the original) getting critically panned, it was still ultimately a success, making $247 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo). Despite the appeal to moviegoers, the Rotten Tomatoes score is still a rock-low 8% rotten. Once again, though, the audience was happier with the movie, rating it at 53% positive and helping the franchise remain a success for the viewers.

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11 Home Team (2022)

Adam Sandler Produces Kevin James' Sean Payton Biopic

In 2022, Kevin James took on an interesting and unusual role in the Netflix movie Home Team. This was another movie that Adam Sandler produced and put his name on, but there were other big names involved here too.

This movie was a fictional re-telling of the year that former New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton was suspended from the NFL after the Bountygate scandal. The movie shows Payton coaching his son's middle school football team and turning them into contenders.

Taylor Lautner made his acting comeback here and Sandler collaborator Rob Schneider also had a role in the movie. While Home Team made big changes to Payton's story, it was a minor success, even getting a small theatrical release from Netflix. Critics panned it, but its 21% score was higher than some other Adam Sandler and Kevin James movies.

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10 I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007)

Adam Sandler & Kevin James Pretend To Get Married

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is about two firefighters, Chuck and Larry. Chuck (Sandler) agrees to be in a domestic partnership with Larry (James) so that he can receive benefits that would take care of his children if anything happened to him.

This film is controversial due to the offensive stereotypes of the LGBTQ+ community. However, the dynamic of a friend doing something so meaningful for his friend is endearing. The two characters also learn to be more appropriate towards LGBTQ+ people by the end of the movie and encourage their close-minded friends to do so as well.

While the movie is not equipped to represent the gay community in any meaningful way, there are some laughs and heart that save it from being an offensive misfire. The movie earned eight Razzie nominations, which at the time was normal for almost any movie starring Adam Sandler. It didn't win any of the Razzies, though.

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9 Pixels (2015)

Adam Sandler & Kevin James In An Alien Invasion Movie

Pixels is a comedic story centered around aliens who misinterpret an arcade game video feed as a declaration of war, causing them to attack Earth in the form of classic games. Pixels is another example of Kevin James and Adam Sandler portraying a genuine friendship on-screen. James plays the President of the United States who recruits his childhood friend Brenner (Sandler), an arcade whiz, to save the world. It is a terrific premise that doesn't always work.

Directed by Chris Columbus (Home Alone), the movie has an incredible cast, with Michelle Monaghan, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad, Brian Cox, Sean Bean, and Jane Krakowski all involved. It even had a cameo by Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani as a repairman at the arcade. The use of classic video game moments from Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Centipede was inspired, and while it received a critical panning (18% on Rotten Tomatoes), it was a box office success, making $244 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo).

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8 Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018)

The Third Movie In Adam Sandler & Kevin James' Animated Franchise

The Hotel Transylvania movies mark another franchise for the duo, with Adam Sandler voicing Dracula and Kevin James voicing Frankenstein's Monster in the first three (neither took part in the fourth movie, Trransformania). Sandler's Dracula is one of the funniest characters, winning a Kid's Choice Award and leading a blockbuster franchise.

Though a continuation of the story from the original two movies, this film follows the gang as they take a cruise at the insistence of Dracula's daughter to get her dad out of the hotel for a short time.

There's a new villain introduced too, with Van Helsing's daughter trying to eliminate the monsters, adding a bit more suspense as they discover the monster-hating Abraham Van Helsing has arranged the cruise. While some fans were thrilled to see the return of these spooky and fun characters, the forced premise seemed to suggest the franchise was running out of steam.

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7 Grown Ups (2010)

Adam Sandler In A Comedy With All His Friends

Adam Sandler's famous friends often pop up in his movies, but Sandler attempts to bring them all together in one movie. In Grown Ups, five good friends go to a lake house for the 4th of July weekend to commemorate their childhood basketball coach who recently ed away.

Adam Sandler and Kevin James are two of these close friends and their interaction in the movie proves that they have the on-screen chemistry that makes their friendship look so natural. The other three are David Spade, Chris Rock, and Rob Schneider.

The chemistry between the cast is certainly the movie's biggest strength, and it is fun seeing them all share the screen even if the jokes don't live up to their talent. The movie was a huge box office success, making $272 million (via Box Office Mojo), despite its 10% Rotten Tomatoes score. However, the audience's 62% score shows that mainstream viewers were more than happy to watch these comic actors having some fun on the big screen.

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6 Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)

Adam Sandler Produces Kevin James' Breakout Movie

In 2009, Adam Sandler helped Kevin James get his big breakout movie made by serving as the producer. The movie saw James star as Paul Blart, a man who takes his job in mall security seriously as he patrols a New Jersey mall on his Segway. He has no problem busting people for the smallest infractions, even if no one in the mall takes him seriously. However, things take a strange turn when a gang of thieves set up a major heist inside the mall, and James is the only person inside who can stop them.

At the end of the day, this was mostly a Die Hard movie but done as a comedy with Kevin James' bumbling mall cop replacing Bruce Willis's John McClane and criminals robbing a mall replacing Hans Gruber's master thief. The movie was a massive success, making $183.3 million on a $26 million budget (via Box Office Mojo) and earning James a sequel.

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5 Sandy Wexler (2017)

Adam Sandler As A Talent Manager

In Sandy Wexler, Sandler plays Sandy, a talent manager in 1990s Los Angeles, whose aspiring clients want to make it in show business. Wexler is a man who often tells huge lies to sound more important than he is, and none of his clients have found any success through him since his first client (who left him). In the movie, James plays one of Wexler's clients, Ted Rafferty, a ventriloquist, furthering the duo's roster of on-screen performances together.

The film also sees a lot of cameos from some of Sandler's many famous friends, with Lorne Michaels, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, and Henry Winkler all making small appearances in this surprisingly charming Hollywood story. With a sweet love story (with Jennifer Hudson as the love interest) and Sandler playing a lower-key version of his manic self, it is a nice change-of-pace Adam Sandler and Kevin James movie for fans.

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