SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot developments in “Happy Gilmore 2,” currently streaming on Netflix.
“Happy Gilmore” fans got quite the shock when Adam Sandler‘s long-awaited sequel finally hit Netflix over the weekend. Three minutes into the movie, Julie Bowen‘s beloved Virginia Venit (who is married and shares five children with Sandler’s Happy) is killed off during a freak accident. Happy has a bad shot during a golf tournament and the ball unexpectedly hits and kills Virginia, whose death then drives the sequel’s plot. Fans expressed outrage on social media over the twist during “Happy Gilmore 2’s” opening streaming weekend on Netflix.
“When I found out that I was killed on page 12, I started laughing,” Bowen told People magazine. “I was on vacation with my family, and I had no wifi. I could barely read this thing. I only had my phone, and I was like, ‘Am I seeing this right’? And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m dead. And he kills me.’ Then I just started laughing. I just started laughing and laughing, and Adam was trying to get through to me. I was on island with no wifi and barely any cell, and we finally connected.”
“I go, ‘I don’t care. It’s great. Happy can’t be happy,’” Bowen added about her comfortability with her character being instantly killed off in the sequel.
“Happy Gilmore 2” director Kyle Newacheck defended the decision to kill off Virginia, telling Slash Film: “There’s always a concern when you’re playing with that type of darkness. But I don’t know, I was never really concerned because it is the driving force [of the film]. If you pull that out, then what do you have? You don’t have anything real.”
“When I first read the screenplay, [Virginia’s death is] like page five, and I was glued when that happened,” he added. “So I knew what that feeling felt like, and I knew that people could get over it.”
Newacheck also directed fans to the opening of the original “Happy Gilmore,” which started with Sandler’s character watching his father get killed by a stray hockey puck.
“There’s darkness in the first one,” Newacheck said. “There’s real dark humor. So I just felt it [was] fitting.”
Perhaps fans are shocked by Virginia’s death in “Happy Gilmore 2” because Bowen was a major part of the sequel’s press tour and was heavily featured in several trailers, which gave the impression that Virginia had a prominent role in the sequel. During an interview on the “Inside of You” podcast at the beginning of the summer, Bowen also explained she was certain she’d be replaced as the love interest in “Happy Gilmore 2.”
“I didn’t think they’d bring me back at all,” Bowen said. “I mean, who am I supposed to be? He’s got to have a younger woman in this one, ‘Happy Gilmore 2.’”
It turns out “Happy Gilmore 2” did bring Bowen back, although it also killed her off. The sequel is now streaming on Netflix.
