Adam Sandler’s 10-Year-Old Video Game Movie Gets a New Streaming Home

Adam Sandler‘s 2015 sci-fi comedy movie Pixels will soon have a new streaming home. It will be available on Netflix starting April 11.

Pixels was directed by legendary filmmaker Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone). Sandler stars as Sam Brenner, a former arcade video game champion who unites with other players to save the world from an alien attack. When the aliens misinterpret video footage of classic video games as a declaration of war, they use the games as blueprints for their invasion, leading President Will Cooper (Kevin James) to recruit Sam to engage the aliens in an all-out battle where the fate of the planet is at stake.

Pixels was inspired by Patrick Jean’s 2010 short film, and Jean served as an executive producer on the film. The story drew on the nostalgia factor of classic retro arcade games, with Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Space Invaders being licensed for the film. Pixels was released in the United States in 2015, and managed an impressive $245 million at the box office against its $110 million budget.

While Pixels may have done well at the box office, the Adam Sandler flick didn’t capture audiences the way the studio would have liked. It received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and moviegoers alike, and the Rotten Tomatoes critics’ consensus reads that Pixels has “little replay value and is hardly worth a quarter”. The film was also one of the most nominated at the Razzies in 2015, losing out on the Worst Picture award to Fantastic Four and Fifty Shades of Grey.

Sandler’s Happy Gilmore Finally Getting a Sequel

Pixels is hardly one of Adam Sandler’s most prestigious roles, but fans of the actor will soon be able to see him reprise one of his most iconic characters. A sequel to Happy Gilmore has been in the works since 2022, and it will finally hit Netflix on July 25, 2025, with a recent trailer showing Sandler back in action as the titular character. The original Happy Gilmore was released in 1996 and was a box office success that later developed an even larger cult following, especially among the golfing community.

Happy Gilmore 2 also stars Julie Bowen, Allen Cover, Dennis Dugan, Christopher McDonald and Ben Stiller, reprising their roles from the original movie. The sequel’s release on Netflix comes as part of Sandler’s longstanding partnership with the streaming platform, which began back in 2014. Pixels marked Sandler’s last theatrical film before making the switch and signing a distribution deal with the streaming giant.

Pixels will be available on Netflix starting April 11.

Source: Netflix