Wow
Tyler Perry's MADEA'S FAMILY REUNION, the nominal sequel to DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN, made over $30 million this weekend.
Wow.
The movie is based on a play that Perry wrote, and it was even filmed as a stage play and released on DVD in 2002. It's one of a string of plays that Perry wrote, many featuring Madea, a grandmother character that Perry plays in drag.
It has no major stars, they didn't show it to critics before it was released, and the budget was only about $6 million. I don't know where they have been advertising it, but I haven't seen any TV ads for it.
$30 million. In 3 days.
I have a feeling I'm about to get innundated with black drag comedies.
Meanwhile, the Paul Walker action film RUNNING SCARED only made $3 million. Ha.
posted by Scott the Reader @ 5:17 PM
8 Comments:
They did market it. To the BLACK community. Tyler Perry was front page news in Atlanta, they did a below the fold several column spread on him, touting his status as a Georgian and rehashing his "Before I hit it big, I was living in my car" story. (There's a LARGE and wealthy Black population here). I also saw him and his cast on the Tyra Banks show as I was channell surfing last week... it's all about the niche marketing, baby.
I saw the first "Madea" atrocity. It was nothing but a lot of segements of older movies stitched together and set in the Black community. He even stole the scene in "War of the Roses" where Kathleen Turner takes a chainsaw to the furniture. It was even done during a divorce dispute. It was so awful that I told my friend, who picked the movie, that she was NOT allowed to pick movies any more.
He did mention that for his next movie would NOT be in drag.
These Madea epics might not be my cup of tea, but what the hell, good for him.
Amazingly, I saw the DVD of the 2002 filmed play on sale at Target, with the exact same title and similar artwork.
Talk about theaters and DVD on the same day...
There was an article in Premiere about Tyler Perry. I can't remember where it was, but at a certain studio, none of the white people had heard of Tyler Perry, but ALL of the black people were very familiar.
I think it blows a lot of white people's minds that there can be this celebrity that they know nothing about.
It is strange.
This all goes back to the "blaxploitation" 70's. None of the white executives thought any black actor could carry a movie (except Sidney Poitier). Then Melvin Van Peebles makes "Sweet Sweetback's BadAsss Song" and showed the studio execs there was a black market out there.
"Shaft" was originally written for a white actor...
It was also a time that independent companies and actors/directors/writers of color could make a movie, sell it and make a lot of money by JUST screening it for the black audience. They didn't need the white audience (but they came in droves anyway).
Now, Tyler Perry was taking his plays on the road to black audiences around the country, eventually getting to the point where his plays were taped and sold after the performances. Then he made his first movie, and the floodgates opened. The distributor picked up his plays for distribution as a set based on his movie's success.
Tyler Perry is a brand.
weird. i'm white, and i saw TONS of TV ads for this film, right here in Los Angeles. and i don't even watch a lot of TV. I basically only watch ABC, NBC, FOX, WB, because I don't have cable. Maybe, Scott, there's a huge gap in ad buying between the city and the 'burbs.
Well, if you watch the WB, there you go ;-)
I read the script for this one and it was INSANE. It goes from Douglas Sirk to Big Momma's House in the blink of an eye. I finished reading and thought, "Horrible! How is this guy a hit?" I sat on it for a little while, kept laughing at how ridiculous and shocking it was (if you haven't seen one of his movies, they go to VERY dark places, and then jump right back to some slapstick), and couldn't get it out of my head. Then, I realized it was one of the more entertaining things I had read in awhile. It's a lot like blaxploitation actually, in how all over the place it is tonally and how that becomes a big part of the appeal. Even though both the comedy and the tragedy come out of societal and cultural issues, they're larger than life like Greek myth, hence the name Medea, except that she's "Madea", because she's "mad". I don't know if he intended all that, because on the surface, these are ludicrous movies. I'd say the movie has fans because you get a thousand plots and characters of every tone imaginable, with barely any build up for them. Everything is on the surface and there is no manipulating of the emotions through subtle detail. It's as if the entire history of "Days of Our Lives" were condensed into two hours.
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