2006 film by Frank Coraci
Click is a 2006 American comedy film[1] directed by Frank Coraci, written by Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe, and produced by Adam Sandler, who also stars. The film is based on "The Magic Thread", a folk tale included in The Book of Virtues. Sandler plays Michael Newman, a workaholic family man who acquires a magical universal remote that enables him to control reality. The film co-stars Kate Beckinsale as his wife Donna and Christopher Walken as Morty, the eccentric stranger who gives Michael the remote.
Filming began in late 2005 and was finished by early 2006. Sony Pictures Releasing released Click in the United States on June 23, 2006. It was made on a budget of $82.5 million and grossed $240.7 million. It was nominated for Best Makeup at the 79th Academy Awards (it lost the award to Pan's Labyrinth). This makes Click the only Sandler-produced film (as of 2024) to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Plot
Michael Newman is an architect who is consistently bullied by his overbearing boss, John Ammer, and often chooses work over his wife Donna and his two children, Ben and Samantha. One night, Michael visits the retail store Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a universal remote control. After an unsuccessful search, he stumbles around various departments before falling asleep. Upon waking, he accepts a free remote control from a man named Morty, who warns Michael that the remote cannot be returned.
Michael learns that the remote can be used to control reality much like a television. He uses it to his advantage at work, to cause light-hearted mischief, and to fast-forward several inconveniences, such as illnesses and arguments. Morty tells Michael that during these times his body is on "auto-pilot", going through the motions of everyday life while his mind skips ahead.
Michael anticipates that Ammer will promote him and so spends lavishly on himself and his family, only for Ammer to tell him that he will have to wait a few months. Michael uses the remote to skip ahead to his promotion, but finds out that he missed out on an entire year of his life. In 2007, he learns that he is in marriage counseling with Donna, the kids prefer watching CSI over Dragon Tales, and that their family dog, Sundance, is dead and his wife has replaced him with a small, obnoxious dog. The remote, having learned his preferences, begins to time-skip automatically. Morty refuses to take the remote back when Michael tries to cancel its service, so the device reappears every time he tries to throw it away or destroy it.
Ammer tells Michael he is retiring and suggests that one day Michael may end up CEO. Momentarily forgetting his plan to outfox the remote, Michael says he would like that to happen, and the remote starts glitching again and fast-forwards 10 years ahead. In 2017, Michael is now CEO of the company and is also morbidly obese. Donna has divorced him and is now dating Ben's childhood swim coach, Bill. When Michael attacks Bill, the new family dog (who replaced Peanut) pounces on him, knocking him unconscious. The remote then fast-forwards six years ahead to skip the injury and other subsequent diseases, such as cancer and a heart attack. In 2023, Donna recounts that Michael had a liposuction during that time and that she is married to Bill now.
Michael finds out his father, Ted, has died of old age. Unable to go to when his father died, he then uses the remote to see the last time they saw each other, learning that he coldly refused to spend time with his father. At Ted's grave, Morty reveals to Michael he is the Angel of Death. Overcome with guilt and shame, Michael asks to go to a "good place", whereupon the remote fast-forwards to Ben's wedding in 2029. There, Michael suffers a second heart attack after overhearing Samantha calling Bill her father. Later, he wakes up in the hospital to find his family there, including Samantha, who clarifies that she views both Bill and Michael as her father. Ben reveals he postponed his honeymoon due to work. Realizing Ben is making the same mistakes he made, Michael gathers the last of his strength to follow him out of the hospital. He collapses and dies, but not before telling Ben to put his family first and assuring his family that he still loves them as Morty takes Michael away.
Michael reawakens in the present in a Bed Bath & Beyond and believes he was dreaming, seeing it as a sign to make changes in his life. Michael goes back home, where he reassures Donna, Ben, and Samantha of his affection for them, agreeing to help the family with their plans for a camping trip, and saying that he will never, ever neglect them again. As he celebrates being home, Michael finds the remote and a note sitting on his kitchen counter. He realizes his experience was not a dream, but a warning. The note is from Morty; it says, "Good guys need a break" and that he knows Michael will do the right thing this time. Michael thanks Morty, but then disposes of the remote in the trash bin, and much to his surprise, it doesn't reappear as it did before. He then goes to enjoy the company of his family.
Production
On July 23, 2003, Sony purchased Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe's spec script Click for $1.75 million, with plans for it to be an Adam Sandler film produced by Revolution Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Neal H. Moritz's company Original Film; the purchase occurred as Bruce Almighty (2003), also written by Koren and O'Keefe, had grossed $236 million domestically in its two-month run.[6] Click was the second comedy Moritz produced for Columbia Pictures, after Not Another Teen Movie (2001).[7] Although Sony planned filming to begin in April 2004 after Sandler finished shooting Spanglish (2004), that was postponed for Koren and O'Keefe to rewrite the script under the supervision of Juan José Campanella, who was announced as director in May 2004.[7][8] However, he was replaced by Frank Coraci, who directed the Sandler films The Wedding Singer (1998) and The Waterboy (1998), in March 2005.[9] Executive producer Tim Herlihy also revised the script.[9] Christopher Walken joined the cast on February 23, 2005.[10]
Imageworks began working on the film's digital effects in January 2006 without any research and development.[11] While most of the effects were shot compositings, three-dimensional graphics were also made for the display on the remote and matte painting a few settings, such as the Bed and Beyond warehouse, a city background at Michael's workplace, and the winter backyard at his home; programs such as Cinema 4D and Autodesk Maya were used to produce the graphics.[11] In order to make the fast-forwarding and rewinding look DVD-like, effects of interlaced video and scan lines "slicing through" were added.[11] Motion control photography and green screen effects were used for scenes where Michael looked back on his life with the remote, meaning that were occasionally two Michaels in the same shot; while rotoscoping was used for the sequence where he changes the color of his face with the remote.[11]
For scenes where Michael pauses his surroundings, the effects crew originally planned for everything to be frozen, including the environment; however, they found out this "bothered" the eye, thus switching the plan to only the characters being frozen while the environment (such as leaves on the trees being blown by wind) keeps in motion.[11] The primary challenge for the freeze shots was sharpening the frozen characters as much as possible; there were some cases where the characters would freeze in a very active moment, causing the effects team to have to work with the motion blur that resulted from it.[11] For instances where characters were frozen in a moment where they were still, they were filmed staying in that position for seconds so that, during post-production, the average of multiple frames would create a result absent of film grain.[11]
Reception
Box office
Domestic
Before Click's theatrical run, Strowbridge predicted, on the basis of a weak critical reception and the commercial failure of a similar dramedy attempt of Sandler's, Spanglish, Click would be one of his lesser hits;[19] however, he suggested it could still gross up to $125 million due to its mixture of comedy and drama elements.[20] The weekend before the film's release, Nikki Finke projected an opening weekend gross of $40 million due to similarly high numbers of prior Sony-produced Sandler comedies such as 50 First Dates (2004), Mr. Deeds (2002), and Anger Management (2003).[21] The day before the film's theatrical start, Entertainment Weekly's Joshua Rich projected Click to have a $55 million opening weekend and a total overall gross of $210 million for its "broadly appealing" high concept and the inclusion of Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale in lead roles.[22]
Domestically, Click opened in 3,749 theaters and debuted at number-one at the box office, grossing $14.5 million on its opening day and $40 million in its opening weekend; Sony distributed the film in a hugely successful year as it was their seventh number-one hit of 2006.[23] Groups of viewers outside the young male demographic were also higher than previous Sandler films;[24] Sony's exit polls showed 51% of attendees being female and 50% over the age of 25.[23] Click was also one of the only three films to surpass a $10,000 theater average that weekend with $10,673; the other two were Wassup Rockers and Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, both of which played at one theater.[25]
Strowbridge predicted that in its second weekend, Click would fall 50% and gross $20 million due to intense competition with Superman Returns.[26] However, while Click grossed approximately that amount and got dethroned by the superhero film as expected by analysts, what wasn't anticipated was that The Devil Wears Prada would open with double the gross initially projected; as a result, The Devil Wears Prada made $27.5 million in three days and placed Click in the number-three spot.[27]
During its third weekend, when the record-breaking Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest debuted, Click had the second-strongest hold of all competitors in the top five; it dropped only 40% from the prior weekend, while Pixar's Cars went down 38%, The Devil Wears Prada 47%, and Superman Returns 60%; Click also surpassed the $100 million mark that weekend, making it the seventh Sandler film to gross that amount.[28] It later grossed $137.4 million in the United States and $100.3 million internationally, with a total gross of $240.7 million worldwide.[3]
International
Click opened on June 30, 2006, in Australia and New Zealand to the number-one spot in both countries; in Australia, it made $2.97 million from 281 theaters, in New Zealand $853,000 from 48.[29] The following week, it went down 34% making $1.98 million in Australia while opening to six screens in Ireland with $59,000.[30] By the fourth week of its international run, Click had grossed a total of $10.87 million and was running in four countries, $9.51 million of the total gross being from Australia.[31] On the weekend of August 28, 2006, Click had a strong number-one debut in Mexico, grossing $1.76 million from 418 theaters, which helped launch the film into the international top ten, specifically number seven; it grossed $4.26 million from 1,159 screens in 22 nations, bringing the international total to $25.71 million.[32] It went down to number nine the following weekend, grossing $3.47 million from 1,104 screens in 27 countries and increasing the total gross to $31.12 million.[33]
Critical reception
Rotten Tomatoes gave Click a score of 34% based on 174 reviews. The average score is a 4.78/10, and the consensus is: "This latest Adam Sandler vehicle borrows shamelessly from It's a Wonderful Life and Back to the Future, and fails to produce the necessary laughs that would forgive such imitation."[34] Metacritic gave it a score of 45 out of 100, based on 35 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".[35] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[36][37] Peter Bradshaw opined Click was an improvement over the previous Sandler flick Mr. Deeds (2002): "It has some moments of good-natured sweetness and Adam Sandler is improving as a comic performer, though he is still conceited and opaque."[38]
The film was criticized for its gross-out humor[39][40][41] and unlikeable protagonist.[39][40] Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote Click failed at being It's a Wonderful Life because "Michael earns none of George Bailey’s mature wisdom honestly."[42]
When it came to positive reviews, Newsweek claimed Click was predictable as a moral story but "unusually dark, occasionally touching and pretty funny" for a Sandler comedy.[43] Empire's Sam Toy enjoyed the film for its "smart and genuinely moving ideas," Beckinsale's performance, and a strong third act, although dismissed the script for being overstuffed, the first half of the film for Sandler being too restrained in his everyman role, and actors such as Coolidge, Hasselhoff and Walken for being put in small roles.[44]
Accolades
