Taylor Swift is showing her support for Travis Kelce’s latest acting endeavor.
The “Fortnight” singer took to her Instagram Story to commemorate the release of Happy Gilmore 2, which the NFL player makes a cameo in as a waiter. There, she shared a photo of Adam Sandler portraying the beloved titular character and rated the film a 13/10.
“Happy Gilmore 2 had me cackling and cheering the whole movie!” the 14-time Grammy award winner wrote. “An absolute must watch, 13/10, go watch it on @netflix as soon as humanly possible.”
Swift included a honey emoji at the end of the post, which seemingly referenced a moment in the film where Kelce is shirtless and has honey all over himself. Her post comes a day after Kelce shared a string of photos of the couple online, notably making their relationship Instagram official.
The long-awaited sequel to the 1996 comedy debuted on Netflix on Friday, starring Sandler as the titular golfer Happy Gilmore. Kyle Newacheck helmed Happy Gilmore 2 while Bad Bunny, Benny Safdie and Haley Joel Osment were new additions to the cast. Christopher McDonald, Julie Bowen and Ben Stiller returned to reprise their characters from the original feature.
Almost a month ago, Swift and Kelce had another first in their relationship as they made their casual red carpet debut. The two mega-stars haven’t been shy in their support of one another, as the popstar is known to frequently attend his NFL games, while Kelce even made a surprise on-stage appearance during one of Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour concerts.
It took over three decades for a filmmaker to pull it off, but Matt Shakman has now made the definitive live-action adaptation of Marvel’s first family by way of The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Fantastic Four is not only the most well received blockbuster of the summer, but it’s also just set 2025’s opening night record of $24.4 million. The critical and commercial win couldn’t come at a better time for Marvel Studios amid the superhero genre’s post-pandemic inconsistency. And given the heavy losses that Shakman himself has endured recently, one can’t help but root for him and his film.
When THR last caught up with Shakman for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, he mentioned his admiration for Christopher Nolan and Stanley Kubrick, and so it doesn’t come as a surprise that his Fantastic Four invites comparisons to Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Fantastic Four contains shots and sequences that pay homage to both pictures, but like Interstellar, the film is largely about the great lengths parents will go to in order to protect their children.
“T.S. Eliot said, ‘Good artists borrow, great artists steal,’ and I definitely am not ashamed of stealing from some of the folks that I love so much,” Shakman tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So Interstellar was a huge reference, as well as 2001 and Apollo 13.”
Interstellar’s central relationship between a loving father and daughter inspired the 2014 film’s production codename, Flora’s Letter, which was meant to be a tribute to Nolan’s own daughter who cameos in the film. Fantastic Four’s primary conflict involves Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm’s (Vanessa Kirby) efforts to protect their soon-to-be-born baby, Franklin, from the wrath of a planet-devouring demigod named Galactus (Ralph Ineson). Thus, Shakman drew upon the challenges that he and his wife Maggie Malone experienced in giving birth to their daughter, Maisie. The 9-year-old girl also has her own cameo in the opening minutes of Fantastic Four.
“I brought so much of my own experience as a husband and as a father. The birth of my daughter was the most fantastic moment of my life. So the birth in this movie evokes all those feelings that I had on that day,” Shakman shares. “[Maisie Shakman] really wanted to do this fun little cameo where she’s saved by Johnny Storm. I was so nervous that day, but she was just such a cool customer and she had such a great time.”
Familial sacrifice also plays a part in Shalla-Bal/Silver Surfer’s (Julia Garner) subplot, prompting Shakman to conduct additional photography a little over two months ago for the sake of showing, not telling.
“It was during post that I felt like I really wanted to see this thing that we talked about, which is the idea of her sacrifice and the decision that she faced in choosing between her family, her planet and her own life,” Shakman says. “It’s so evocative to the themes of the movie at large and reflective, no pun intended, of the Fantastic Four’s crisis and their conflict, so it felt like it was something we needed to see.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Shakman also discusses the character overlap between Sue Storm and Wanda Maximoff, as well as the original plan behind the mid-credit scene.
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Two of the most optimistic superhero movies ever made have landed within two weeks of each other. They also bypass origin stories for the most part. Were you and Superman writer-director James Gunn drinking water from the same well the last few years?
(Laughs.) Perhaps! It’s amazing how the zeitgeist can create things, but no, I’ve never met James Gunn. I’m a huge fan of his work. I’m also a huge Superman fan, so I’m thrilled that they’re both out this month.
Director Matt Shakman on the set of The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/Marvel
When you helmed WandaVision, Marvel was still approaching their TV series with the same methodology as their movies. They’ve since gone the more traditional route. Thus, did you make a seamless transition to the feature side of things?
Well, making WandaVision was wonderful. It was the highlight of my directing career before getting the chance to make FantasticFour. Both of them are right up there for me, and it was a great opportunity to work with everyone at Marvel very closely and to realize just how intimate an experience it is to work at Marvel. It’s a small family making something. You think of [Marvel] as the production company behind the studio and these enormous tentpoles, but [their projects] are really made by very few people, passionate people, working really hard. So making six hours of Wanda definitely felt like swinging two or three bats, and while FantasticFour was still a giant task, it’s a little easier to focus on two hours of material instead of six.
Sue and Wanda both depict the concept of “hysterical strength.” The classic example is when a mother can somehow lift a car to save her baby, and Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby apparently witnessed something like that en route to creating the Hulk. So how conscious were you of Sue and Wanda’s overlap?
The two strongest people I know are my wife and my daughter. They constantly inspire me with their strength, and I see that in Sue and in Wanda, so I tried to bring that [strength] to both of them. They’re both amazing characters in Marvel and in comic books, in general, and I’ve been so lucky to help bring both of their stories to life, both through WandaVision and now Fantastic Four. Wanda is a deeply emotional character, as is Sue. They both have incredible emotional intelligence, and they are handling so much, having both gone through so much. We put Sue through the wringer in this movie, for sure. Vanessa Kirby and Lizzie Olsen are both incredible actors, and getting the chance to work with them both to bring these characters to life was amazing.
Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards and Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/Marvel
I don’t know if you’ve seen Materialists, but Pedro Pascal’s character voluntarily augmented himself in a way that became a blessing for him. Conversely, with Reed’s elasticity being involuntarily forced upon him, does he consider his power to be a blessing?
In [1961’s] Fantastic Four #1, Reed basically says something that’s similar to what Uncle Ben says to Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility.” In the very first Fantastic Four comic book that Kirby and [Stan] Lee created, they say, “We need to use these powers for good. We need to make our world better because of what happened to us.” So very early on, they make that decision, and it’s part of their optimism. It’s part of their civic-minded nature. And so, yes, I think they all think of it as being a blessing, but maybe with the exception of Ben. Throughout the comic books, there’s been an ongoing story of Ben struggling with questions of, “Is he a man? Is he a monster who’s trying to hold onto his humanity?” He’s the one of the four that isn’t in control of his powers. He can’t turn on his rock nature or turn it off. So his powers are a burden for him in a way that the others’ powers are not.
When you and Ebon first discussed the material, was he a good sport about playing another character with culinary interests?
(Laughs.) The culinary part of it wasn’t really what we talked about from the beginning. That was something that happened as we were going along, and the idea that Ben was the chef and worked with Herbie to cook stuff just made sense. It really sprung out of who Ben Grimm is. He’s not really a blood relative of any of them, but he’s the glue that holds this family together. [Writer’s Note: Funnily enough, despite being referred to as “Cousin,” Moss-Bachrach’s character on The Bear also isn’t blood-related to the story’s central family.]
I love August Wilson’s play Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and there’s a character called Bynum because he binds everyone together. So I think of Ben as being that. He’s very community minded. He loves Yancy Street where he grew up. He still goes back there. We had [those scenes] in the film for a reason. He’s also very family-oriented, and he’s an incredibly kind, caring person, while also being hilarious. That’s what’s so great about him. He has the rough, hard exterior, and yet he has this soft gooey center. Ebon is just amazing at bringing him to life, and he’s such a funny actor, but also such a brilliant dramatic actor. He’s able to hold all of those elements of Ben in one brilliant performance.
H.E.R.B.I.E and Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Ben Grimm/The Thing in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios
I asked Joseph Quinn at Warfare’s press day if you remembered him on the Game of Thrones “Spoils of War” set in 2016. His character was covered in armor, he only had a couple scenes, and there were a thousand people on that set. This was also long before he covered Metallica on Netflix. Did he actually register with you back then?
Yeah, he did. A hundred percent. Joe is a great actor, and he’s also a lovely guy. We had two or three days together on Game of Thrones. It wasn’t a lot, but still very memorable. I thought, “This kid is great,” and I’ve been so impressed by his range. Looking at Game of Thrones, StrangerThings, Warfare, Gladiator II and this movie, everything that he’s done is so different. He’s very transformative as an actor and just alive. He has such a spark to him. So I absolutely remember him, and he was on my list [for Johnny Storm] right away.
Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm/Human Torch in Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/Marvel
The design of this movie is mighty impressive across the board, especially Kasra Farahani’s production design. During the strikes, I believe that’s all you could really work on, so do you credit that unusual time period for how intricate and immaculate everything is?
Yeah, having a little extra time was definitely very helpful. We had it on WandaVision too because of the pandemic. We were able to do storyboarding and concept art. So a lot of design work happened during that period, even some early VFX look development, and I do credit that.
Kasra is amazing. He is a singular artist, a genius and just a wonderful collaborator. We went deep into Syd Mead, Oscar Niemeyer, Eero Saarinen and the World’s Fair in New York in the mid-’60s. We had all of these great reference points, as well as Jack Kirby and the comic books, in building this world that would feel grounded and authentic. We wanted it to feel like the ‘60s that we know from history, but with this layer of futurism on top of it, a layer that comes from Reed Richards.
Reed didn’t exist in our ‘60s because we’re on a different Earth in a different universe, but he existed there, and he’s like Steve Jobs, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein and Robert Moses all combined. For 20 or 30 years, he’s been changing that city in a way that our New York in the ‘60s did not. So it was about trying to find those layers of history and then finding those offshoots of Reed Richards’ tech that grow out of the familiar New York.
When their ship prepares to dock in outer space, you have the Interstellar-type shot where the camera is fastened to the exterior of the ship. Overall, was that movie one of your references?
I love Interstellar, I love [Christopher] Nolan and I love Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. When you see a shot of [Excelsior] docking, it is absolutely a loving homage to the Pan Am jet heading towards the space station in 2001. T.S. Eliot said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal,” and I definitely am not ashamed of stealing from some of the folks that I love so much. So Interstellar was a huge reference, as well as 2001 and Apollo 13. There’s this amazing IMAX doc [called Apollo 11] about the Apollo 11 mission, and it was made for the 50th anniversary in 2019. It is incredible, and it was another huge reference point for us.
[Note: This question/answer contains spoilers.] This is the part where I ask about the mid-credit scene. Was that spot always earmarked for the Russos to fill in later? Or were there other possibilities along the way?
No, we always knew that there would be a tag scene and that Doctor Doom would be a part of it. We had a lot of different ideas of what that scene could be, but we knew it would eventually be shot during the making of Avengers: Doomsday. So once Doomsday started to come together in terms of what story they were telling, it started to become clear what we wanted to do for our tag.
John Malkovich’s Red Ghost. Was he part of the Subterranea story, the crime syndicate subplot or that montage in the opening?
He was part of the opening. He was a part of introducing us to the Fantastic Four — who they are and their powers. But we had so many things to introduce: this new universe, this new earth, this retro-futuristic ‘60s, four main characters and two villains in Galactus and Silver Surfer. So it was a lot, and it just felt like we didn’t have the landscape to properly do justice to that. So I’m sorry Malkovich is not in the film because he was wonderful.
[Note: This question/answer contains spoilers.] I believe Shalla-Bal’s (Julia Garner) flashback was added in the later stages. Was that a response to test audiences and wanting to bolster her inner conflict a bit more?
No, the awakening element of the Surfer was something that evolved throughout the script work and throughout post-production. So it was during post that I felt like I really wanted to see this thing that we talked about, which is the idea of her sacrifice and the decision that she faced in choosing between her family, her planet and her own life. It’s so evocative to the themes of the movie at large and reflective, no pun intended, of the Fantastic Four’s crisis and their conflict, so it felt like it was something we needed to see.
Do you have another Marvel project you’d love to pursue after this? Or are you not getting ahead of yourself?
I’m definitely not getting ahead of myself. It’s been three years of working closely on this one, and it has been a dream come true to work on these characters. I’ve loved the Fantastic Four since I was a kid, and it’s an honor to bring them to the MCU. So I’m just focusing on this one right now.
You’ve obviously been busy, but have you had a chance to watch Agatha All Along yet? They managed to shoot on Blondie Street one last time before Warner Bros. Ranch was sadly torn down.
No, I actually haven’t [had a chance to watch]. I’m so behind. I have seen pretty much nothing over the last year, so I have a lot to catch up on. But it’s incredibly sad [regarding Warner Bros. Ranch]. As a child actor, I grew up working on the Warner Bros. Ranch lot. I did a TV show there called Just the Ten of Us for years. When I was 10, 11 and 12, I’d skateboard on Blondie Street, and I feel very nostalgic and sentimental for it. One of the reasons why I really wanted to shoot Wanda there was to be surrounded by all that great sitcom history. So it’s a shame that it’s gone; it really was a special place.
Decades from now, when you’re reminiscing about the making of Fantastic Four, what day will you likely recall first?
The day that my daughter filmed her part in the movie. This movie is all about family, and I brought so much of my own experience as a husband and as a father. The birth of my daughter was such an amazing moment; it was the most fantastic moment of my life. So the birth in this movie evokes all those feelings that I had on that day, and when the chance to bring her into this movie came up, she really wanted to do this fun little cameo where she’s saved by Johnny Storm. I was so nervous that day, but she was just such a cool customer and she had such a great time. So that will be the day I probably think of first.
As a former child actor, if your daughter expresses an interest in going down that path, will you encourage it?
I’m deeply ambivalent about child acting. It’s a difficult path, but I ended up coming out okay because I had great parents. It’s hard to be professionalized at a young age, and I just think acting, or whatever you choose to do, should come from a place of joy and that you should find your way to it naturally and organically. A lot of child actors end up finding their way to it inorganically, and it’s not something they choose. So whatever my daughter does, I just want to make sure that she’s the one choosing it, and that she knows what she’s signing up for and that she’s coming to it with love.
*** The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now playing in movie theaters nationwide.
The action-packed first trailer for James Cameron‘s next Avatar fantasy epic has leaked online — and the footage looks spectacular.
Disney has released the trailer for Avatar: Fire & Ash “exclusively” in theaters in front of Fantastic Four: First Steps. And just like with Christopher Nolan’s “only in theaters” trailer for The Odyssey earlier this month, grainy unauthorized copies have begun to circulate online. Disney is clearly trying its best to cut down on the viral spread — the Fire & Ash trailer has been a bit tougher to find Nolan’s — with copies being taken down almost as fast as they pop up.
Needless to say, reaction from moviegoers who watched the trailer in theaters on Friday has been effusive. Fan site The Sietch of Sci-Fi said the trailer “looks incredible.” Another raved that the trailer was “some of the most beautiful footage I’ve seen all year [and I was] struck by the real sense of doom and rage — fist fights inside of cosmic volcanoes, heroes terrified, huge aerial battles.” While another entertainment writer wrote, “[The trailer] started out as ‘meh, more of the same’ and ended with ‘yup, another billion to James Cameron.’” And a film critic wrote: “The visuals are (somehow) on another level. There is no doubt in my mind that this WILL be the biggest movie of 2025, and ‘epic’ doesn’t feel like it does this trailer justice.”
The trailer returns moviegoers to Pandora and introduces two new tribes, the Wind Traders and the fire-hurling Ash People clan. The footage shows (trailer spoilers here — if that’s a thing) Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his partner Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and his Na’vi family engaged in intense arial fighting with the Ash People clan. There’s also the return of the sinister Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), now sporting dramatic white, black and red warpaint, suggesting he might have made an alliance with the Ash People. At one point, a captive Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) is told by a new villain, Varang (Oona Chaplin), “Your goddess has no dominion here.” While Sully warns Neytiri, “We cannot live like this,” and is taken captive and paraded before the Pandora occupation forces. And young Spider (Jack Champion) seems like he’s in jeopardy quite a bit.
The first Avatar, released in 2009, became the highest-grossing film of all time, raking in $2.9 billion globally. The first sequel, 2022’s The Way of Water, charted as the third-highest-grossing movie of all time (with $2.3 billion), beating expectations and silencing doubters that the Oscar winner could pull off another Avatar blockbuster. At this point, few doubt Cameron’s ability to generate massive box office returns with the Avatar franchise and confidence is high that Fire & Ash will deliver when its released as a major holiday tentpole on Dec. 19.
While a run time hasn’t yet been announced, Cameron has teased that Fire and Ash “will be a bit longer” than The Way of Water. The last film was three hours and 12 minutes.
“In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of [Way of Water],” Cameron recently said. “The [film] was moving like a bullet train, and we weren’t drilling down enough on character. So I said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to split it.’ [Fire & Ash] will actually be a little bit longer than [Way of Water].”
Cameron plans five Avatar films and has said he intends to direct them all, as well. Much of the footage, Cameron has said, has already been shot. Avatar 4 is set for Dec. 21, 2029, and Avatar 5 will arrive Dec. 19, 2031.
Cameron also hopes to adapt the Charles Pellegrino books Ghosts of Hiroshima and Last Train From Hiroshima as soon as his Avatar schedule permits. The film would focus on the true story of a Japanese man during World War II who survived the atomic blast at Hiroshima as well as the explosion in Nagasaki. If it comes to fruition, it would mark Cameron’s first non-Avatar film since 1997’s Titanic.
Fire & Ash cast members include Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Britain Dalton, Jack Champion, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Matt Gerald, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Bailey Bass, Jemaine Clement and David Thewlis.
The official description of Fire and Ash: “Jake and Neytiri’s family grapples with grief after Neteyam’s death, encountering a new, aggressive Na’vi tribe, the Ash People, who are led by the fiery Varang, as the conflict on Pandora escalates and a new moral focus emerges.”
This group of rising actors have crossed their latest project off their lists.
Crossed, the post-apocalyptic comic book adaptation from The Boys creator Garth Ennis, has set its ensemble cast, which is led by Devin Druid (13 Reasons Why) and Ash Santos (American Horror Story).
The duo star as Stan and Cindy, the leaders of a group of strangers thrown together as they attempt to escape northward away from the inflicted konwn as the Crossed. In this world, those affected by a mysterious disease appear to have a cross on their foreheads, with these people follow their worst impulses. Imagine if zombies were just humans who their intellect, but are also homicidal maniacs.
The cast includes other survivors on the run, played by Ethan Jones Romero (Law & Order) as Thomas; Kyla Hee (Psychosis) as Kelly; Chido Nwokocha (Top Gun: Maverick) as Kitrick; Spenser Granese (Dope Thief) as Brett; Bob Morley (The 100) as Randall; Ana Mulvoy Ten (American Crime) as Sheena; Steven Hack (Little Death) as ‘Geoff; and newcomer Lorenzo Ross as Patrick.
Owen Harn (Cobra Kai) leads the infected Crossed as the villain Horsecock. He is joined by Fedor Steer (Haunted Mansion) as Face and Kelvin Adekunle (City of Love) as Stump.
The cast also includes Angie Campbell as Amy and Peter Falls as Joel.
Six Studios is backing the project, which is now in post-production after wrapping principal pphotography in Los Angeles. Ennis penned the script, inspired by the original 10 issues he published from 2008-10. Rob Jabbaz directed.
“Fans of Crossed have speculated on our cast for some time, and in the spirit of helping all Crossed fans survive the coming apocalypse, we are pleased to reveal our exceptional cast who are bringing Garth’s thrilling and horror-filled comic series to life on screen,” said producer Carl Choi of Six Studios.
Its creative team also includes cinematographer Benji Bakshi (Bone Tomahawk), production designer Freddy Waff (Megalopolis), stunt coordinator Steve Brown (Avatar: The Way Of Water) and editor Greg D’Auria (Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3). David Guglielmo oversaw casting.
Druid is represented by Untitled Entertainment and Gang Tyre; Santos by Gersh and M88; Romero by Gersh and Vickery Management; Hee by Innovative Artists and Corner Booth Entertainment; Nwokocha by TalentWorks and Main Title Entertainment; Granese by Untitled Entertainment; Morley by Brave Artists; Mulvoy Ten by TalentWorks and Strand Entertainment; Hack by O’Neill Talent Group; Ross by Osbrink Agency; Harn by Amber Management; Steer by Burton & Robinson Agency; Adekunle by Aqua Talent Agency and Mattiee Management; Campbell by NBS Entertainment; Falls by Bohemia Entertainment.
Twenty-seven years ago, Armageddon benefited from a marketing campaign that left a lasting impression.
Director Michael Bay’s sci-fi disaster movie starred Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton and Liv Tyler in the story of a team of oil drillers sent into space to destroy an asteroid before it hits Earth. Disney’s Buena Vista Pictures released the film July 1, 1998, and THR reported then that the TV advertising spend was less than for a typical tentpole due to increased visibility elsewhere.
“We benefited from some very creative executions,” then-Buena Vista Pictures Marketing president John Cywinski told THR at the time.
As noted in the story, a key example was “a series of building art in Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas where they made it appear as if an asteroid had blown a hole through the building.” The concept, which likely wouldn’t have been approved post-9/11, was the talk of the town, with trompe l’oeil billboards near the 101 and 405 freeways in L.A.
“It was very smart and shows a great way to use outdoor campaigns,” says Russell Schwartz, former New Line president of theatrical marketing. “Most outdoor [marketing] is wasted because they’re basically taking the poster and just blowing it up.”
The unsettling visuals helped the film hit big, as Armageddon collected $553 million at the box office (more than $1 billion today) to leave the year’s similarly themed Deep Impact in the dust and become 1998’s highest-grossing title.
Today, Armageddon continues to get buzz from Affleck’s snarky DVD commentary track. (“It’s a real plan at NASA to train oil drillers?” Affleck recalled asking Bay.) Earlier this year, Affleck quipped that his commentary track is “maybe my best work in my career.”
This story appeared in the July 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
In 1996, former hockey player Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) was able to take three steps and pound his grandfather’s “really old” driver 400-plus yards. For self-serious golfers, it required suspension of disbelief at the highest levels. General audiences sure didn’t seem to mind.
Since that time, the only technology that has accelerated as quickly as golf clubs can be seen in the changes to our video distribution systems. In Netflix’s Happy Gilmore 2, the contents of Happy’s bag get a major upgrade — whether or not streaming is an upgrade to theatrical in the delivery of video content is an entirely different conversation.
Martin Borgmeier, who can actually can drive the golf ball 400 yards — and that’s just with a warmup swing — has embraced to great success how physics inform the long ball. So who better to break down the biomechanics of Happy Gilmore’s long game than the man who beat out all-world golfer (and a big hitter in his own right) Bryson DeChambeau at the 2022 World Long Drive Championship. We got a few tips to try out along the way.
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You were five years old when Happy Gilmore came out — what is your relationship to that movie?
It was the first golf movie I watched as a kid. I started golf at the age of nine. It was definitely the first (golf) movie I’ve watched, and all of the rest came after that — so, like, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Tin Cup…because it was my big dream as a like 10-14 year old to become a professional golfer and basically become the next Tiger Woods. It didn’t work out. (Laughs.) But like all these movies, obviously, were a big part of my life. And Happy Gilmore— actually, I’ve watched it back, like, maybe 10 years ago or so, and I realized at that point [that] all the jokes and all that stuff, most of it didn’t even [register]. But the one thing I I knew as a kid — and I remember it was — he hit it extremely far. He had his super-crazy pre-shot routine and everything — the run-up and all that stuff — and I just found it funny and enjoyed the long drives and terrible putts as a kid.
We’ve all tried the Happy Gilmore swing — have you had success with it?
Yeah, it’s so funny you say that because I just posted a Reel on my Instagram for a Bad Birdie giveaway. (Bad Birdie is a golf apparel company and a Borgmeier sponsor.) It was an ice hockey jersey (Gilmore’s first sport). [I did] the crazy approach — the Happy Gilmore swing — a little bit exaggerated, even with, like, probably 10-15 steps and a little bit of yelling involved as well. So yeah, I’ve tried it, and actually it worked pretty well.
[But] the way I did it in the video — obviously on purpose — I’m kind of just like poking the golf ball a little bit, and it falls off tee (for comedic effect). That turned out to be much harder than actually striking it well, because the biomechanics behind it— [The Happy Gilmore swing] is actually a great drill for long-drive. What you have to accomplish is, you have to get your pressure forward into your lead leg just before you make contact with the golf ball, and at the same time, stay back with your upper body, because otherwise you cannot swing up on it. So basically, forcing that by running up to it is a great way to practice that element.
Your posted longest drives are 484 yards in competition and 520 yards in exhibition — how far did a good Happy Gilmore-swing go for you?
I mean, when I really pounded it, it’s probably not even that different to when I’m really going after it (with a normal long-drive swing.) It’s not too much about the speed. I think the speed is pretty much the same — it’s fast (Borgmeier’s record ball speed is 239.3 mph) — but the crazy thing is really making the contact while keeping the face square.
Adam Sandler as Happy Gilmore in Happy Gilmore 2.
Courtesy of Netflix
You’re 6’4” and 240 lbs. There’s undoubtedly a big strength factor in long drives. But you mostly talk about biomechanics as a means to long drives — what do you see as the breakdown of brains vs. brawn?
Eighty-twenty. 80 percent mechanics and the remaining 20 percent is — let’s call it strength. But all of the work we do in the gym is mostly to stay healthy and actually make our bodies be capable of handling all the stress we put onto them on a daily basis, right? Because, I mean, obviously it’s a one-sided motion. We rarely hit golf balls left-handed…so it’s really about staying strong and healthy and being able to withstand all the stress we put onto it.
But to really hit it far, let’s say 80 percent is biomechanics, and then that remaining 20 percent I called strength, is basically your body allowing yourself to swing faster because it knows it can withstand all of that and allows you to do that, if that makes sense. Because otherwise, when you look at strongmen, right, the strongest people in the world — if strength was such a big part of it, they would [have the fastest ball speeds] in the world. They’re not. So that’s really how it works, and that’s also what I’ve been doing over the past, like, five, six, seven years, [trying] to figure out, like, how much of what is really important. And if I had to do one thing for the rest of my career, it would be biomechanics only.
Can you analyze Happy Gilmore’s swing for me?In movie-land, his drives go 400-plus yards (with old clubs). How far can a guy of his Adam’s stature and that swing with those clubs really drive a golf ball?
I would guess a 250[-yard drive] would be an amazing drive with that equipment. Because what’s going to happen with modern golf balls and his clubs, is it’s just gonna spin too much. So a lot of the energy— even if he swung really fast with that Happy Gilmore swing, he would lose a lot of energy of that ball just ballooning up in the air [instead of going] forward. Even if it was a really low-degree driver, with current golf balls and titanium drivers, obviously, that energy transfer is going to be much better than with wooden clubs.
When we talk “smash factor” — that’s one of the efficiency data points we use with launch monitors — modern titanium drivers would be around one-and-a-half of the club head speed would be ball speed. So let’s say you swing at 100 mph, it would turn into 150 mph ball speed. I would see that factor at like, roughly 1.3 or something with the wooden club. So it would be much, much, much slower than a titanium driver.
My distance sucks. Give me one or two things I could do, sight unseen, that would instantly add yardage?
It’s a combination of two things. So first of all, being aware that a driver swing is different to an iron swing. So with a driver swing, the golf ball is on a tee, so we don’t have to take the divot after the ball, we can actually swing up on it…and that’s going to improve the launch with the spin, and eventually make the golf ball go up further.
And so the other bit is — it’s actually fairly close to the Happy Gilmore swing, because, [while] he’s doing it in an extreme way, being more athletic in general and being less of a robot, and actually using a little bit of the athleticism we know from other sports…Look at any other sport — even baseball, they move, they freaking move before they swing! The pitcher, before he throws, he’s gonna move, utilizing a little bit of that [athletic movement]. That could just be a slight little trigger move before you take away the club, so making that body shift to the right before you take away the club — or it could be as extreme as the Happy Gilmore swing, but eventually moving our bodies a little bit could definitely help to get a little bit more power into that swing.
I’m gonna try some crazy shit in my garage tonight.
[Laughs] Don’t break your leg!
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
