Don’t worry, it’s not an ADAM SANDLER movie, it’s an Adam Sandler MOVIE. Carey Mulligan will play Sandler’s wife in The Spaceman, an adaptation of Jaroslav Kalfar’s novel directed by Johan Renck, the director of Chernobyl. So, no, Carey Mulligan is not co-starring in one of Adam Sandler’s comedies, she is co-starring in a real film that happens to also star Adam Sandler (even though both types of Adam Sandler movies are being distributed by Netflix now). Everyone can exhale—I know this announcement caught many of us off guard. “Carey Mulligan in an Adam Sandler movie” is not a headline we ever expected to see. Except this is more Uncut Gems, less Grown Ups.
Interestingly, this film comes from Channing Tatum’s production company, Free Association. So what we really have is a film directed by the Chernobyl guy, starring the Pixels guy and the lady from the classy British dramas, produced by the Step Up guy, and it’s being released by a website. The 2020s are wild. But really, The Spaceman sounds like an interesting project, and I am glad Sandler isn’t making us wait ten-plus years between his actual, made-an-effort performances like he did last time. He is a good actor, when he wants to be, and I’m glad he already wants to be one again. I’m also curious to see more from Johan Renck, he directed the sh-t out of Chernobyl. I do think it says something about what advancements have and have not been made for women in film that Mulligan comes off a performance like Promising Young Woman to play The Wife opposite an actor almost 20 years older than her, but it is what it is. For everyone one Cassie, there are ten The Wife. At least she’s not starring as The Wife in Grown Ups 3.
