After Carl Weathers‘ death at age 76 last year, Happy Gilmore 2 had to undergo a rewrite to account for his absence.
Ahead of the long-awaited sequel, which premieres July 25 on Netflix, Adam Sandler noted there were plans to have the actor reprise his role as Happy’s golf coach and mentor Chubbs Peterson from the original 1996 sports comedy.
“We had a painful change. Carl Weathers had a massive part,” he told Collider. “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.”
Sporting a wooden prosthetic after an alligator took his hand, Chubbs fell out of a window to his death in the original movie due to the shock of Happy presenting him with the reptile’s head as a thanks for helping improve his short game.
“In the first version that we came up with, he had a son,” noted Sandler of the sequel. “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.”
After Weathers’ family announced he died in his sleep on Feb. 1, 2024, Sandler remembered him as “A true great man. Great dad. Great actor. Great athlete. So much fun to be around always. Smart as hell. Loyal as hell. Funny as hell. Loved his sons more than anything. What a guy!! Everyone loved him. My wife and I had the best times with him every time we saw him. Love to his entire family and Carl will always be known as a true legend.”
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