In a moving tribute to legendary film critic Roger Ebert, who passed away Thursday at the age of 70, Sony Pictures has announced it is ending its long-running production deal with Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, effective immediately. According to Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal, cutting business ties with Sandler and his associates was the best possible way to honor the man who when referring to Adam Sandler in 2002 asked, “He can’t go on making those moronic comedies forever, can he?”

“Roger Ebert was one of the last of America’s great film critics,” Sony Co-chairman Amy Pascal said in a statement. “Even though he hated every Adam Sandler comedy, he still showed up to review them, because Roger felt he owed it to the public to warn them how bad they were.”

During Sandler’s tenure at Sony, Happy Madison produced a record-number of critically-panned comedies including “That’s My Boy,” “Jack and Jill,” “Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star,” “Just Go With It,” “Click,” “The Benchwarmers,” “Joe Dirt,” “The Animal” “Mr. Deeds,” “The Master of Disguise,” “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” and “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.”

The future of Sony’s upcoming Adam Sandler comedy “Grown Ups 2,” which was set to open in July is now uncertain, but Hollywood insiders are confident that Sony will do the right thing and honor Ebert’s legacy by shelving the film indefinitely.

The news of Sony pictures ending their producing deal with Happy Madison Productions took Sandler by surprise since he was unaware that Roger Ebert has passed away. Sandler stopped reading anything with the mention of Ebert years ago, fearing it may include another horrible review.