So... I checked the Box Office receipts and Tyler Perry's much-maligned
Why Did I Get Married, Too? has quietly topped the $60 Million mark. Doesn't sound like much, but you gotta keep a few things in mind:
1) Why Did I Get Married Too has only been out 5 Weeks.You ask any studio exec if they'll take a $60 mill gross for 5 weeks of play for a non-summer blockbuster flick with no big-name A-list talent and they'll let you defile them on YouTube.
2) Why Did I Get Married Too only cost $20 million to make.Let's see... 20 mill to gross 60 mill? Them's 3 to 1 returns, folk... Now obviously there's all manner of P&Ls to reconcile, but it's safe to say that TP Studios will live to film another day. (Insert gag reflex here.)
3) It was on a third less screens than Miley Cyrus' flick.Why Did I Get Married Too, like most of Perry's flicks and most black flicks, have never had the industry standard 3000 screen release. (Will get back to this in a few.)
4) Black films ain't gettin made.Other than Perry, the ocassional Spike joint when's the last time you saw black movie? And by Black, I mean, a story line rooted in black life or relevant to black audiences?
Denzel does pretty mainstream, crossover fare. Same with Will... Nothing wrong with that, either. You tell the stories you wanna tell, and the stories that sell and hope the twain meet.
But, there's still this sense that if it's a story rooted in black life that doesn't have some crime or music or cartoonishly stereotypical component to the flick, that it won't be profitable and ergo not worthy of a decent budget or marketing push.
Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of
"Why... Too" but alas, Tyler Perry is catering to an audience that continues to remain woefully ignored by Hollywood and TV land. If Blacks with no interest in depressing inner city blues tales and half-baked urban street fare wanna take in a movie, they've gotta wait for Denzel or Spike to drop something. Otherwise it's Morgan Freeman doing another of his patented "
asexualized, non-threatening old black man in mainstream flick" role or Sam Jack yelling his eye-sockets out between shootouts with smartass white folk flicks.
That leaves a mountain range of untapped stories to be told that aren't biopics or sanitized historical pieces or
cool white person saves the downtrodden black folk fare.
And sure, Tyler Perry keeps mining the same 2 inches of top soil, but at least he's got a shovel and at least he's digging. What's everyone else's excuse. It ain't like he's out there on some HNIC trip.
And again, I think Perry's real genius isn't his filmmaking, but his marketing. Dude was recording his theater plays before anyone on Broadway even thought about doing that. And again his unapologetic want to target 35-plus Black folks and faith-based urban communities... laugh all you want, but every black person don't wanna see hood tales, whether they lived it or not.
But what really cements it for me is TP's simplistic, straight-to-it emails ... they just get you every time. People spend thousands on sites and every new digital trend under the sun, yet Tyler perry takes the "Dear Y'all" approach and wins.
Here's the last one I got:
Sorry it’s taken me a day or so to collect myself but I was out of the
country. Friday, after my last promotion for the movie, I flew over to my
little piece of heaven. I spent all of Resurrection weekend in prayer and
meditation, talking to God, my Mother, and myself. On Monday, I dialed into the
States to see how the movie did. I was blown away and so grateful to you! YOU
HAVE NO IDEA! THANK YOU, do you hear?! I cannot begin to tell you how much I
appreciate you for going to see WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO. Believe it or not,
after opening 9 movies in 5 years, it still never gets old. I am so thankful
that you are on my side. God bless you for that. Wasn’t it incredible?! What
about Janet’s performance? She blew me away. If you haven’t seen it, this is a
good time to see it. It was sold out practically everywhere opening weekend.
I want you know that there is a reason for that…being sold
out is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but from the first movie to this one I
have been fighting for more screens. For some reason, I have never been able to
get my movies to play in more than 2,150 theaters. I have fought until I’m blue
in the face and nobody can give me a clear cut answer. To put this in
perspective, when most movies open, take for instance CLASH OF THE TITANS, it
was on 3,800 screens, or the Miley Cyrus movie, which was on 3,100. Most movies
open on between 3,000 to 5,000 screens.
Anyway, if I keep fighting, maybe one day I’ll get enough
screens so that you won’t have to be packed on top of each other, as well as be
turned away time and time again after driving all the way to the theater. Don’t
get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I just want there to be adequate seating for
the demand. That’s all I’m saying. Trust me, I still know that this is a blessing.
So, sorry for the inconvenience, but thank you for sticking
with it, and me. Hollywood was blown away by this opening weekend and I was
too! Thank you again!
Can we shift gears for a second? I want to talk about Haiti.
Every day for weeks, the news media sensationalized Haiti.
Now you don’t hear a thing about it. I knew that would happen. It was the same
with New Orleans after Katrina, and what I learned in that time is to wait
until it’s old news and then you will really begin to see the true needs of
people. A few weeks ago it was so chaotic you couldn’t understand what was
going on but now it’s beginning to become clear so, with that, I think that
right now is the time for me to get involved.
I have identified 4 charities that I will be working with
and giving them each $250,000.00. The first one will be Yele Haiti, Wyclef
Jean’s Organization. After having a long conversation with him, I am truly
assured that not only will my monies get to the people at the heart of Haiti,
but also the monies that you have given will get there as well. In total about
$130,000.00 was raised here online. I will divide that four ways so that it
will be added to each of my donations. I will be giving you progress reports
and updating you as time goes on. I will also announce the next charity as soon
as I understand what their strategy will be in Haiti.
Be
Blessed,
Talk soon and God bless.
===========
Dumb simple, ain't it?
Doesn't matter if anything in that email is true or accurate, really. But from all the research I've done, the disparity of theaters, budgets and schedules afforded black filmmakers is 100% fact. The game's still fixed. Such is life.
That aside, TP's bluntness and honesty in his emails keep people coming. These emails circulate 50-100 times per person. And you know this is going out to 250K folks, at least. They go everywhere and back. By the time a movie opens, every black person you know has read this thing and at least heard about what he's up to and you're ready to go.
Be clear. Tyler Perry's website is awful. It's totally underfunded and just... eh, #icant. But so what. He's got a URL that is basically a digital billboard with a comments section. And that's about he needs really, because this email thing he's on? It's 100.
Anyway, I'm out. Talk soon. Duty calls again.
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