The Wedding Singer is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Coraci, writt by Tim Herlihy, and produced by Robert Simonds and Jack Giarraputo. The film stars Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, and Christine Taylor, and tells the story of a wedding singer in 1985 who falls in love with a waitress. The film was released on February 13, 1998. Produced on a budget of US$18 million, it grossed $123 million worldwide and received gerally positive reviews from critics. It is oft ranked as one of Sandler's best comedies.
The film was later adapted into a stage musical of the same name, debuting on Broadway in April 2006 and closing on New Year's Eve of that same year. Jon Lovitz would reprise his role as Jimmie Moore in the episode of the same name of The Goldbergs, set during the evts of The Wedding Singer, with Sandler, Barrymore and Billy Idol appearing through the use of archival footage. The film marks the first collaboration betwe Sandler and Barrymore, and is followed by 50 First Dates and Blded (the latter also directed by Coraci).
Robbie Hart is a wedding singer in Ridgefield, New Jersey in 1985, whose own wedding to his fiancée Linda is approaching. He meets and befrids Julia Sullivan, a new waitress at the reception hall where he works, and promises to sing at her wedding, though her fiancé, businessman and bond investor Gln Gulia, has yet to set a date.
Alexis Arquette Dead At 47: The Wedding Singer Star Died Listening To David Bowie's Starman
On Robbie's wedding day, his sister Kate informs him as he waits at the altar that Linda has changed her mind about the wedding, leaving him humiliated and emotionally devastated. Later that day, Linda visits Robbie and reveals that she fell in love with him for his ambitions of being a rock star, and hates the idea of being married to just a wedding singer. Robbie sinks into depression, causing his frids and family to be concerned. His best frid Sammy convinces him to return to work, but he gives a depressed performance that is panned, and decides to give up wedding gigs and reges on his promise to sing for Julia wh Gln finally sets a date. However, Julia convinces him to help her with the planning and their fridship blossoms. During a double date with Julia, Gln, and Julia's cousin Holly, Robbie learns from Gln that he cheats on Julia frequtly and plans to continue after they are married.
Julia and Robbie are increasingly confused by their deeping feelings for each other. Wh Holly tells Robbie that Julia is marrying Gln for his money, he unsuccessfully pursues a job at a bank. Julia is dismayed at his materialism, and wh he accuses her of the same, she becomes angry with him. Depressed, he decides to follow Sammy's example of only having shallow relationships with wom, in response to which Sammy confides that he is unhappy, and courages Robbie to tell Julia how he feels. Meanwhile, Julia confides in her mother that she has fall out of love with Gln and has developed feelings for Robbie, and bursts into tears thinking about becoming Mrs. Julia Gulia. Robbie arrives to declare his feelings, and sees her through her bedroom window in her wedding dress, where she is happily looking in a mirror pretding she has just married Robbie, but Robbie assumes she is thinking of Gln.
Heartbrok, Robbie leaves to get drunk and finds Gln in the midst of his pre-wedding bachelor party, arm in arm with another woman. After a heated exchange, Gln punches Robbie and mocks him. Robbie stumbles home to find Linda waiting for him wanting to reconcile, and passes out. The following morning, she answers the door and introduces herself as his fiancée to a crestfall Julia. She runs to Gln, who is sleeping off the evts of the previous night, and tells him she wants to be married immediately. He half-heartedly offers to take her to Las Vegas.
Prime Video: The Wedding Singer
Robbie awaks and, after shaking off his hangover from the previous night, rejects Linda's reconciliation, having realized how shallow she is during his time with Julia, and kicks her out. At the 50th wedding anniversary party of his neighbor Rosie, to whom he has be giving singing lessons, he realizes he wants to grow old with Julia and, with Rosie's couragemt, he decides to pursue her. Just th, Holly arrives and informs him of Julia's counter with Linda, so Robbie rushes to the airport and gets a first class ticket to Las Vegas.
After telling his story to his empathetic fellow passgers, which include Billy Idol, he learns that Gln and Julia are on the same flight. With the help of Billy and the flight crew, over the loudspeaker, he sings a song he has writt called Grow Old With You, dedicated to Julia. As Robbie ters the main cabin singing, Gln tries to assault him only to be thwarted and shoved into a lavatory by the flight attdants with assistance from Billy and a large fan. Robbie and Julia admit their love for each other, and share a kiss. Billy, impressed by Robbie's song, offers to tell his record company executives about him. Later, Robbie and Julia are married, and Robbie's bandmates perform at their wedding.
Other notable appearances include future-Ques of the Stone Age musician Michael Shuman as The Bar Mitzvah boy, screwriter Stev Brill as Gln's buddy, the film's own writer Timothy P. Herlihy as Rudy, a Bartder, model Shanna Moakler as a flight attdant, and Al Burke played the Large Billy Idol Fan. Also appearing uncredited were Steve Buscemi as David Veltri, Jon Lovitz as Jimmie Moore, and Brian Posehn as Man at Dining Table #9. and Chauntal Lewis as Stuck-Up girl at Bar Mitzvah.
The Wedding Singer Filming Locations
Adam Sandler had an idea for a comedy about a wedding singer who gets left at the altar, and suggested it to Tim Herlihy. Inspired by the radio show Lost in the '80s Herlihy decided to set the film in that decade. Herlihy had not set out to do anything differt and thought the script was similar to his previous collaborations with Sandler. The changes came naturally, and he attributed the differces to his rectly having gott married, as well as the chemistry betwe Sandler and Barrymore.
Herlihy was aware that Sandler's previous films had lacked a female perspective, and emphasized the importance of Barrymore. He explained that she was so great in her sces that test audices did not complain about Sandler not being in every sce as they had done for his previous films, and as a result more of her sces survived and were included in the final film.
Director Frank Coraci was frids with Sandler since they wt to college at NYU and could hardly believe that he and his frids had the opportunity to make films together. Coraci had also gott over his own experices of romantic heartbreak a few years earlier and was able to look back on it differtly and instead allow it to be funny. Coraci was a fan of director John Hughes and mtioned his films as an important influce.
Adam Sandler The Wedding Singer Film Kunstdruck
Barrymore had a great relationship with Coraci, and praised him for balancing the broad comedy with the important momts of emotion and intimacy. Sandler would oft make Barrymore laugh out of context, so that ev after a long day, her laughs on camera would be real. In addition, she would not read or hear the songs until the first shoot so that her reactions would be more spontaneous.
On Rott Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 72% based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's critics conssus reads, It's decidedly unev -- and surprisingly sappy for an early Adam Sandler comedy -- but The Wedding Singer is also sweet, funny, and beguiling.
On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews.
The Wedding Singer Musical Review
Leonard Klady of Variety wrote: Director Frank Coraci and scripter Tim Herlihy work in concert to maintain a quality of farce rooted in human comedy.
Boy George responded to the film, saying that wh he saw Alexis Arquette doing an impersonation of him and singing Do You Really Want to Hurt Me he thought it was hilarious.
Two soundtrack albums for the film, called The Wedding Singer and The Wedding Singer Volume 2, were released in 1998. While the film had the actors performing many of the songs, the soundtrack albums, for the most part, contained the original versions of the songs instead, as well as the songs that were in the background during the film and original songs and dialogue from it. Only for Rapper's Delight was its rdition (by Ell Dow) used, in combination with the original recording.
The Wedding Singer (musical)
In 2006, a musical adaption of the same name was released on Broadway starring Steph Lynch as Robbie and Laura Banti as Julia. The show has had two national tours in 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 respectively. It was nominated for five Tony Awards and eight Drama Desk Awards and received gerally good reviews. In this show, the
