‘Happy Gilmore 2’ Has Already Been Written, According to Shooter McGavin

For more than a quarter of a century, we’ve been waiting to find out what happened to Happy Gilmore. Did he continue playing pro golf? Did he try to make it as a hockey player again? Did he carve out a new career as Subway’s least problematic spokesperson?  

Well, now it turns out that we may finally get the answers to these burning questions in a Happy Gilmore sequel — that is, if the original film’s villain is to be believed. Christopher McDonald, who famously played Happy’s shit-for-breakfast-eating golfer rival Shooter McGavin, just appeared on the The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima and dropped a major nugget of “intel.”

According to McDonald, he recently ran into Happy Gilmore himself, Adam Sandler: “He says to me, ‘McDonald, you’re going to love this.’ And I said, ‘What?’ He says, ‘How about that!’ And he shows me the first draft of Happy Gilmore 2.” McDonald then backpedalled the announcement slightly, adding, “Maybe you should cut that out. I don’t want to be a liar, but he did show me that and I thought, well that would be awesome. So it’s in the works.”

Of course, Sandler hyping a Happy Gilmore sequel isn’t exactly earth-shattering news. In a past interview with Variety, Sandler expressed a desire to return to the character,  as well as Billy Madison and Bobby Boucher from The Waterboy. He suggested that the sequel could be “about Happy as an older guy” who has to “calm down his temper” while participating in a Senior Tour. While that may have just been an offhand comment, Sandler also floated the idea during an appearance with McDonald on The Dan Patrick Show in 2021. 

The big revelation is that, if McDonald is to be believed, this isn’t just idle chatter anymore, there’s an actual, honest-to-goodness “first draft” script for Happy Gilmore 2 in existence. Clearly, McDonald is clearly a big supporter of this idea, which isn’t too surprising considering that he has continued playing Shooter McGavin in TV commercials throughout the years.

But it remains to be seen how many other cast members would return, should the project come to fruition. Carl Weathers, who played Happy’s one-handed mentor Chubbs Peterson passed away in February, meaning that, barring some Ghostbusters-esque CGI meddling, he definitely won’t come back as a Force Ghost (along with his crocodile nemesis and Abraham Lincoln).

The actress who played Happy’s grandmother, Frances Bay, died in 2011, so don’t expect a sequel in which Happy goes full “Jason Statham in The Beekeeper” on the abusive nursing home staff that somehow avoided any comeuppance in the first movie. 

Not to mention, legendary TV personality Bob Barker is gone too. And a scene in which Adam Sandler bare-knuckle boxes with Drew Carey just wouldn’t be the same.

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