Staycation Plans: Stream Away the End of Summer Blahs With Two New Comedies From Sandler and Cena
Have the end-of-summer blues got you down?
If so, consider therapy. In the meantime, though, Netflix and Hulu are dropping some light entertainment to get you through the dog days.
First, Hulu is releasing Vacation Friends 2 with Meredith Hagner, John Cena, Lil Rey Howery and Yvonne Orji, on August 25th.
In this sequel to the 2021 original, the gang is back together a few months later. Newly married couple Marcus (Howery) and Emily (Orji) invite their uninhibited besties Ron (Cena) and Kyla (Hagner), who are also newly married and have a baby, to join them for a vacation when Marcus lands an all-expenses-paid trip to a Caribbean resort.
His reason for traveling there in the first place is to meet with the owners of the resort to bid on a construction contract for a hotel they own in Chicago. But when Kyla’s incarcerated father Reese (Steve Buscemi) is released from San Quentin and shows up at the resort unannounced at the worst possible moment, things get out even further of control, upending Marcus’ best laid plans and turning the vacation friends’ perfect trip into total chaos, according to the movie’s official description.
The movie is once again written and directed by Clay Tarver and also stars Carlos Santos, Ronny Chieng, and Jamie Hector. Todd Garner and Stuart Besser served as producers on the sequel.
If you’re interested in more family-friendly fare, Netflix and Adam Sandler (and his family) want you to know that You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.
Not Invited stars Sandler’s teenage daughters Sunny and Sadie, with Sandler playing their father and Idina Menzel their mom.
Based on the young adult novel by Fiona Rosenbloom, the official description reads: “Lifelong best friends Stacy (Sunny Sandler) and Lydia (Samantha Lorraine) have long dreamt of epic bat mitzvahs but when popular boy Andy Goldfarb (Dylan Hoffman) and Hebrew school drama come between them, their perfect plans go comically awry.”
The project is the latest in Sandler’s current $250 million Netflix deal. So far the actor-comedian has produced eight titles for the streaming service, including the Western parody The Ridiculous Six to his dramedy Sandy Wexler to an acclaimed stand-up special called 100% Fresh – slight misnomer as the special currently sports a 90% Fresh rating.
The film is directed by Sammi Cohen (Crush) with a screenplay by Alison Peck, produced by Happy Madison and Alloy Entertainment, and also stars Sarah Sherman, Luis Guzmán and Jackie Sandler.
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah also premieres (but on Netflix) on August 25th.