Scream Helped Rewrite Her Image
Before the romantic comedies came another crucial moment.
In 1996, Barrymore appeared in Wes Craven’s Scream.
Her role as Casey Becker was brief, but it became one of the most memorable opening sequences in modern horror.
Barrymore was already famous enough that audiences could reasonably expect her to be the film’s protagonist.
Instead, Scream killed her character during its opening sequence.
That surprise helped establish the movie’s central message: nobody was safe.
For Barrymore, the role offered another opportunity to reshape her screen identity.
She was no longer simply “the child from E.T.,” nor merely the troubled former child star tabloids had followed through adolescence.
She was becoming an adult performer capable of using her own celebrity expectations as part of the storytelling.
Biography identifies Boys on the Side and Scream as significant parts of the period in which Barrymore reestablished herself professionally.
Then, in 1998, came the film that would permanently alter the direction of her mainstream career.
Then Came Adam Sandler
The Wedding Singer paired Barrymore with Adam Sandler.
The premise was straightforward.
Sandler played Robbie Hart, a wedding singer whose own engagement collapses. Barrymore played Julia Sullivan, a waitress preparing to marry a man who increasingly appears to be completely wrong for her.
Set in the 1980s and filled with music, nostalgia and broad comedy, the movie depended heavily on the audience believing the affection developing between its two leads.
Barrymore and Sandler made that part look effortless.
The film became a major commercial success.
According to Box Office Mojo, The Wedding Singer cost approximately $18 million to make and grossed about $80.2 million domestically and $43.1 million internationally, for a worldwide total of roughly $123.3 million.
That meant the movie earned close to seven times its reported production budget at the global box office.
For Barrymore, however, the value went beyond money.
The Wedding Singer gave audiences a version of her that would become central to her career: warm, vulnerable, funny and deeply likable.
She was no longer primarily being cast because of the troubled image attached to her teenage years.
She could carry a mainstream romantic comedy.
That same year, Barrymore reinforced her leading-lady status in Ever After, a reinterpretation of the Cinderella story.
Biography describes 1998 as the year Barrymore proved herself as a romantic leading actress through both The Wedding Singer and Ever After.
The former child star Hollywood had once considered unemployable was now becoming one of the faces of late-1990s romantic cinema.
Barrymore and Sandler Did It Again
The chemistry audiences saw in The Wedding Singer did not disappear.
Six years later, Barrymore and Sandler reunited for 50 First Dates.
This time Sandler played Henry Roth, a man who falls for Lucy Whitmore, played by Barrymore, only to discover that a memory condition prevents her from remembering their relationship from one day to the next.
The film became an even larger commercial hit than their first collaboration.
According to Box Office Mojo, 50 First Dates grossed approximately $198.5 million worldwide, including more than $120 million in North America.
The pairing had now proven itself twice.
Their screen dynamic depended on an unusual balance.
Sandler could be loud, absurd and chaotic.
Barrymore gave the films emotional softness without eliminating the comedy.
Together, they created the sense that underneath the jokes there was genuine affection.
Years later, in 2014, they teamed up for a third romantic comedy, Blended.
That film earned roughly $128 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
More than a decade after Blended, their friendship continues to generate interest.
In 2025, PEOPLE reported Barrymore reminiscing about 50 First Dates and noting that their daughters had watched the movie together. Barrymore has also publicly expressed her desire to collaborate with Sandler again.
What began as a casting choice in 1998 evolved into one of the most recognizable recurring romantic-comedy pairings of their generation.
She Stopped Waiting for Hollywood to Decide Her Future
Barrymore’s comeback was not limited to acting.
One of the most important decisions she made was learning to create opportunities rather than simply waiting to be cast.
In 1995, she and producer Nancy Juvonen established Flower Films.
PEOPLE confirms that Barrymore and Juvonen co-founded the production company in 1995 and went on to collaborate on numerous projects.
That move proved enormously significant.
Barrymore was still only about 20.
The girl who had once been dependent on adults to control every part of her professional life was now building a company through which she could exercise greater influence over the projects she made.
Flower Films went on to be connected to films including Never Been Kissed, Charlie’s Angels and 50 First Dates.
Barrymore starred in many of the company’s projects while also working behind the scenes as a producer.
That shift represented another stage in her reinvention.
She was no longer merely recovering her status as an actress.
She was becoming someone who could participate in shaping the movies around her.
Charlie’s Angels Turned the Comeback Into a Business
By the beginning of the 2000s, Barrymore’s career looked almost unrecognizable compared with where it had been at 14.
She starred alongside Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in Charlie’s Angels.
The film became a major commercial franchise, followed by Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle in 2003.
Barrymore was not simply one of the stars—she also served as a producer through Flower Films.
Other projects followed, including Never Been Kissed, Donnie Darko, Fever Pitch, Music and Lyrics and eventually Barrymore’s feature-directing debut, Whip It.
The scale of her second act was remarkable precisely because her first career had appeared to collapse before most people even entered high school.
Yet Barrymore gradually became something much more durable than a child star who successfully returned to acting.
She became a producer with a company.
She became a bankable leading actress.
She became a director.
And eventually, she reinvented herself again.
From Movie Star to Daytime Host
In 2020, Barrymore launched The Drew Barrymore Show.
The syndicated daytime program combines celebrity interviews, human-interest stories, lifestyle material and Barrymore’s highly personal conversational style.
What might once have seemed like an unlikely career move has proved durable.
As of September 2026, the show is preparing to enter its seventh season.
CBS Media Ventures announced that Season 7 will premiere on September 14, 2026, following what the company described as the program’s most-watched season yet, reaching approximately 1.6 million daily viewers.
And the network has already made a longer-term commitment.
In March 2026, CBS Media Ventures announced a two-season renewal, guaranteeing Seasons 7 and 8 and keeping The Drew Barrymore Show on the air through 2028.