Article content After serving as the backdrop for the classic sports comedy Happy Gilmore, Metro Vancouver will sit out the next round when a sequel starts shooting next month. A casting call has gone out for extras to appear in the upcoming Netflix movie Happy Gilmore 2, and they’re being sought not in B.C.
but in New Jersey for a shoot from September to November. In the 1996 original, scenes were shot at local golf courses including Peace Portal (now The Hills at Portal) in South Surrey, Riverway in Burnaby, Swaneset in Pitt Meadows and Furry Creek near Britannia Beach. Other locations that stood in as golf clubs were the Stanley Park Pavilion and VanDusen Botanical Garden.
Joel Hurley, who scouted locations around the Lower Mainland for the 1995 shoot, said filming was also done at the Vancouver heritage building Hycroft Manor; Happy’s apartment exterior is actually Quebec Manor at East 8th Avenue in Mount Pleasant; and Happy’s beloved grandmother’s house is on West 19th Avenue. Hurley recalls shooting was done during a Vancouver Voodoo inline hockey game at Pacific Coliseum, while a skating scene was shot at the nearby PNE Agrodome. And when grandma ends up in a retirement home under the thumb of a deranged orderly played by Ben Stiller, it’s actually a much-used Metro movie location, Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam.
Some of the spots are no longer there. When Happy tries out for a hockey team in the film, those scenes were shot at the defunct Capilano Tennis Club, and a gas station scene was shot on the since-reconfigured Low Level Road in North Vancouver. Now a collection of counties and courses in New Jersey will be visited by the pugnacious, long-hitting, Bruins-loving golf savant, nearly three decades after the first movie came out.
Happy Gilmore, which took in $41 million at the box office on a $12 million budget, has gone on to become a sports comedy classic on par with hockey’s Slap Shot, bowling’s Kingpin and baseball’s Bull Durham, not to mention fellow golf classics like Caddyshack and Tin Cup. Rumours swirled for a long time about the prospects for a sequel, but it appeared a long shot — pun intended — until this spring when it was finally in development. Grant Wilfley Casting is looking only for New Jersey locals to appear as background actors in the movie.
Sadly, that means no one from Happy’s Canadian home will be able to stand behind the ropes whispering “Jackass” under their breath in salute to the late great comedian Joe Flaherty. And finally, a quick bit of trivia: The character is so entrenched in North American culture that there’s now a real golfer named Happy Gilmore in the collegiate ranks at Ball State University. His real name is Landon, but he’s been known as Happy ever since he was, appropriately, heckled at a long drive competition for kids, and even signs up for tournaments using the name.
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