Adam Sandler's confoundingly persistent popularity: 4 theories

The SNL vet's critically ravaged That's My Boy is just the latest in a long string of excruciating comedies. Why is Sandler still a box-office star?

Adam Sandler in "That's My Boy"
(Image credit: Facebook.com/That's My Boy)

Derided as "a new low" and "as bad as you can get," Adam Sandler's latest turkey, That's My Boy, is slumming it with a 20 percent approval score on movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Such condemnation is hardly new for Sandler. The actor recently broke records at the Razzie Awards, which "honor" the year's worst films, and four of his last five movies failed to pass the 20 percent mark on Rotten Tomatoes. And yet, somehow his films still reliably gross more than $100 million apiece at the box office. (He's pulled off the feat 12 times in total.) Why do audiences continue to turn out for his terrible movies? Here, four theories:

1. Sandler surrounds himself with popular co-stars...

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