Word: madea
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...might just be winning the war. His first play to be turned into a movie, the 2005 Diary of a Mad Black Woman, was made for a paltry $5.5 million yet earned $22 million in its opening weekend on the way to a $50 million gross. A year later, Madea's Family Reunion--in which Perry reprises his signature drag character, Mabel (Madea) Simmons--took in $30 million in its first three days and eventually grossed $63 million. Last fall's Why Did I Get Married?, an ensemble drama about a couples' retreat, made $55 million. And next year...
...Tyler Perry empire that includes sold-out road shows and popular DVDS of the plays, the tbs sitcom House of Payne (Allen Payne stars, but Perry wrote the scripts, which do invoke the Almighty), the best-selling book Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life and, on the Internet, The Tyler Perry Show. All of which make him the most successful "unknown" conglomerate in show business. If official culture takes little notice of Perry, that's O.K. with him. He can laugh all the way to the altar...
...casts some prime scene stealers--Cicely Tyson, Janet Jackson, Angela Bassett, Louis Gossett Jr., Jenifer Lewis, Maya Angelou--but rarely draws their best work from them. Most of the actors could wear tags describing their characters: work-obsessed wife, philandering husband, saucy slut, overweight sweetie, bombastic uncle ... and Madea (a conflation of Mother Dear), the wise, wisecracking granny from Heck...
...inspirational film, Woman, Thou Art Loosed, drew theatergoers through grass-roots marketing in black churches; and the studio has Resurrection, a film from Left Behind author Tim LaHaye, in development. Lions-gate is betting on Tyler Perry, whose first two films, Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion, delivered well at the box office thanks to spiritual themes and enormous support from black churches. Hollywood, it seems, is ready to give God his close...
What's next? I have a book of Madea's advice on love and life coming out, titled Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, which boils down to, Don't p___ off a black woman...