It looks like one of the stars of Grown Ups will be missing when the inevitable sequel comes out this summer. Rob Schneider is the only one of the central five characters who isn’t returning for Grown Ups 2, and he’s been replaced by his fellow Adam Sandler regular Nick Swardson. Swardson will play an alcoholic school bus driver who’s the brother of Rob Schneider’s character from the original and sports a similar hairstyle.
The reasons for Schneider not being included in the film are unclear. In a radio interview last year, Schneider cited money issues and a scheduling conflict with his CBS sitcom Rob, explaining, “They’re doing Grown Ups 2 without me. Mistake. They should have paid me a lot of money … Well, truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I’d have my TV series, so it was an availability thing, but at the end of the day, they should have [said], ‘What money does Rob need?’” The scheduling conflict story doesn’t quite check out as Rob had been canceled by CBS in May of last year ahead of Grown Ups 2’s production, and the movie was filmed during the summer, which is a production hiatus for most network shows. Schneider has also been conspicuously absent from Sandler’s last three movies, which is strange considering he’s been in nearly every Adam Sandler movie up to that point, so start throwing around your conspiracy theories now.
