Adam Sandler Is A 74-Year-Old Lizard In The Leo Trailer
Throughout Adam Sandler's deeply wide-ranging career, the talented actor has delivered some pretty wild performances that have ping-ponged from one extreme to the other. After his run through the '90s and early aughts included hits like "Happy Gilmore," "The Wedding Singer," and especially "Punch-Drunk Love," he more or less lapsed into autopilot mode with several undemanding comedies before roaring back to life with "Sandy Wexler," "The Meyerowitz Stories," and "Uncut Gems." Well, now audiences are about to see Sandler as they never have before: as a lizard.
Netflix's "Leo" might seem like yet another unrefined streaming comedy aimed at the lowest common denominator, but the premise of Sandler voicing an aged class pet who's suffered through countless boring and monotonous school years performing for the amusement of obnoxious kids kind of sounds ... intriguing! And weirdly true-to-life, too, for those who might want to interpret that as a rough parallel to Sandler's own series of choices as an actor during his more fallow years. But on its most basic level, there's something to be said for the sheer potential of Sandler teaming up with comedian and actor Bill Barr (who voices a similarly jaded turtle) for a kid-friendly animated comedy that's also described as a musical.
That last aspect isn't exactly made clear in this new teaser, but we'll take Netflix's word for it. Check out the footage below!
Watch the Leo trailer
Life has a way of sneaking up on you. You go through the motions of your familiar routine until, one day, you look around and you realize you only have one year left to live. Do you make some radical changes to do everything you always dreamed of but never got around to, or meekly accept your fate as an aged class pet with nowhere else to go?
That's the weirdly existential idea behind "Leo," the PG-rated kid's movie starring the comedic voice talents of Adam Sandler, Bill Burr, Cecily Strong, Jason Alexander, Sadie Sandler, Sunny Sandler, Rob Schneider, Jo Koy, Jackie Sandler, Heidi Gardner, Robert Smigel, Nick Swardson, Stephanie Hsu, and Nicholas Turturro. The film comes from the directing trio of Robert Marianetti, Robert Smigel, and David Wachtenheim, with a script credited to Smigel, Sandler, and Paul Sado. It's still very early days, so the teaser doesn't exactly tease much beyond Sandler and Burr's buddy comedy duo. But as far as kid-friendly animated comedies go, you can certainly do a lot worse than that.
"Leo" comes to Netflix November 21, 2023.
Actor and comedian Adam Sandler ("Hotel Transylvania," "The Wedding Singer") delivers signature laughs in this coming-of-age animated musical comedy about the last year of elementary school — as seen through the eyes of a class pet. Jaded 74-year-old lizard Leo (Sandler) has been stuck in the same Florida classroom for decades with his terrarium-mate turtle (Bill Burr). When he learns he only has one year left to live, he plans to escape to experience life on the outside but instead gets caught up in the problems of his anxious students — including an impossibly mean substitute teacher. It ends up being the strangest but most rewarding bucket list ever...