Box Office - It's All About Tyler Perry

A big per-screen average of over $10,500 helped Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself make just under $25 million at the box office. That's over twice as much as it needed to make to win the weekend, and Perry's third biggest opening, although it's way behind Madea Goes to Jail, which put up $41 million in 2,200 theaters back in February. But since his movies cost very little to produce, Perry has become one of the most reliable and profitable one man bands in the industry and there's no sign that he's losing any steam. The animated film, 9, slid into second place this weekend. It opened on Wednesday, so its total box office is a little over $15 million, but just looking at the weekend it brought in $10.9 million million, which is OK for the 1,600 theaters it calls home, but you have to wonder how well it can hold up over the next month. If it makes $30 - $35 million, will that be enough to keep Focus focused on alternatives to the big Pixar and Dreamworks animated product? The other new releases, Whiteout and Sorority Row are both failures, neither one earning more than $6 million. That's particularly bad news for Sorority Row, which received a heavy marketing push in the past couple of weeks. Whiteout was essentially just being sent out to slaughter after a year or delays. But neither movie did better than half of what it was expected to, and that's about all she wrote for both of them. Rounding out the top five were Inglourious Basterds, All About Steve, and The Final Destination, tumbling from first to fifth place. Basterds is now over $100 million, and is now just four million bucks behind Pulp Fiction on Tarantino's all-time list. Overall, the top twelve was down considerably over the previous few weeks, with only about $77 million in tickets sold. The Top Five:
1 - I Can Do Bad All By Myself ($24 million)
2 - 9 ($10.8 million)
3 - Inglourious Basterds ($6.5 million)
4 - All About Steve ($5.8 million)
5 - The Final Destination ($5.5 million)

Comments

[SEAN]

I mean Tyler Perry in my opinion is quite a talent, he is gifted, I mean he's such a threat, writer,actor,director, producer, playwright, owns his own STUDIO!

However his films aren't the greatest of rated, which kinda bums me out but that's because they aren't that good, but THE THING IS WITH TYLER PERRY I FEEL LIKE HE HAS SO MUCH TALENT BUT HE HASNT EXPLORED HIS FULL POTENTIAL

He's mainly comedic and writes comedy more so and finds the happier things in life, but I have a feeling sometime sooner or later, he will write and make movies that are possibly darker and more dramatic, BECAUSE NO ONE CAN DENY HE HAS AN AUDIENCE AND HIS FAN BASE IS ONLY GROWING, in my opinion

I dunno I hope he goes that direction or make even better films b/c this guy churns out #1 box office films or films in general every year or so....

Thats something Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Woody Allen, Robert Rodriguez, just dont do, but when they do put out films they tend to be fairly good....
-perhaps the only writer/director that is up to his pace is Judd Apatow, I cant think of any others...

So I dunno what do people think?

[Get The Big Picture]

I think he's just hit on a formula that works. I certainly don't view him as having awe-inspiring talent, especially not as a director. But Lionsgate knows where to put his films (weak opening weekends), and there's not another mainstream actor or director aiming his products so squarely at the African-American audience.

The comedies do better than his dramas, and I don't see him losing the appeal with the target demo, so unless rival studios start putting bigger films against his, he'll continue making money.

[SEAN]

thanks for the opinion Colin, appreciate it....

hopefully he will actually start to do more work of substance because the guy knows Lionsgate puts his films out with literally no competition so perhaps he'll say to himself one day

"screw that I wanna make a film with some depth and substance and go against some competition to challenge myself and see how I do"

Hopefully that will happen but who knows if he will challenge the formula that works..

[panda]

I love Tyler Perry and I have a lot of respect for him, especially the fact that he's out there doing his thing - independantly. Some of his comedy stuff is pretty funny and very appealing to its audience market, hence the good box office receipts - much better than a lot of the 'urban' dross that passes as comedy (Soul Plane, Big Momma's House etc) and is distributed by studios looking to make a quick buck from a market audience that they largely ignore. Regarding Colin's comment that 'Lionsgate knows where to put his films (weak opening weekends)' - that's the whole point of marketing and distribution, mate, release a film at the time of least competition. Not many studios/distribution so-called experts have clocked onto this simple but effective little fact, hence the constant glut of summer blockbusters, which more often than not, fail to live up to the box office hype. At least give Lionsgate & Perry some credit for clever marketing tactics.

However, having said all that, I agree with Sean, it would be good to see Perry explore material with darker, more dramatic elements, material that taps further into his potential. Because as much as I love Perry's stuff, most of the scripts aren't that great and could do with a lot more depth, texture and quality control. Maybe Perry needs to expand his empire a bit and gather around him a strong talented team of writers, story execs, directors & producers, all of whom could serve to further enhance and develop the quality of material that is released from his studios to a much higher standard.

Also, on a final note, maybe the studios should take a leaf out of Tyler's book and try and cater for a more diverse audience, rather than ignoring three quarters of the world's population and only churning out movies that exclusively represent and cater to only a quarter of the world's population. The world is crying out for - and deserves - a more diverse story palette than is currently being delivered by Hollywood & Co. Slumdog Millionaire does not need to be a fluke, there are millions more untapped stories like that out there, just waiting to be developed. Perry is more than well placed to take up a challenge like that, and if his studio and output is to continue to grow & develop, then he needs to take on more creative & dramatic challenges within this direction. As for Hollywood, I won't be holding my breath....they'll continue to do what they do best, churn out ludicrous amounts of crap for ludicrous amounts of money...Transformers II, etc - need I go on?

[Get The Big Picture]

I do give Lionsgate credit for it, but we should also hasten to crown Perry a King of Hollywood, because his films are kind of on an island. LGF doesn't put the films in the line of fire both to make money and to keep from having to spend money in a more competitive environment. However, another studio will go head-to-head with a Madea movie eventually, and it'll be interesting to see what Lionsgate's tactics are then. Do you promote more heavily or rely on the same audience you've always had in your corner?

More to the point, though, I'm surprised at how few imitators there are for this style of spiritually enhanced comedy. Again, he's definitely hitting his target, but I don't know how much bigger it can be than it already is. That's why it seems so repetitive, I think, but there's no arguing with the success of the way it's been handled.