Tyler Perry is the king of the Hollywood box office for Academy Awards weekend. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) debuted with just 2,032 playdates on Friday and scored a monstrous $14.65M for a Per Theatre Average of over $7,000. The final weekend take could be $41.12M.
The box office king....err....queen of Oscar weekend
Although I am not necessarily a fan of Tyler Perry movies, I am a Tyler Perry fan. He traveled the country for years doing live stage shows in order to fine-tune his act, and he identified an under-served audience – African Americans, and more specifically black, Christian women. Now he makes two movies a year, and he has two television series’ on TBS – House of Payne and Meet the Browns. He built a multi-million dollar studio in an under-served area in Atlanta, taking advantage of tax credits for building in a blighted neighborhood. Now he is building a mini-empire. He produces, writes, directs and stars in his projects, and he even helps to finance them.
Perry has proved that it is possible to reach out to an audience that Hollywood has generally ignored. He saw a demographic market, and now he knows how to hit that “sweet spot” over and over again. He is an unabashed capitalist and, although he may never win an Academy Award for this brand of movie, he is selling a lot of movie tickets. Madea Goes To Jail was not screened for critics, and it wouldn’t matter anyway. Here’s TP’s movie resume.
ALL-TIME TYLER PERRY OPENINGS
1. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail – $41.12M opening (studio estimate)
2. Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion – $30M opening – $63.25M cume
3. Diary of a Mad Black Woman – $21.9M opening – $50.6M cume
4. Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married – $21.3M opening – $55.2M cume
5. Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns – $20.1M opening – $42M cume
6. Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys – $17.3M opening – $37.1M cume
7. Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls – $11.2M opening – $31.3M cume
As I was discussing the numbers with studio execs today, everyone was amazed. This is about Perry’s unique voice, but there’s something else happening. The first two months of 2009 have been filled with movies that have beaten industry expectations. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) with $31.8M in its first 3 days and almost $120M by Monday? Notorious (Fox Searchlight) comes out of nowhere to grab $23.4M over MLK weekend? A micro-budgeted French import like Taken (Fox) will pass $100M in the US? Clint Eastwood delivers his biggest wide opening weekend and top-grossing picture of his career with Gran Torino (Warner Bros)? The reboot of Friday The Thirteenth (Warner Bros) scares up an amazing $43.5M 4-day start? The movie business is incredibly healthy despite an uncertain economy. I continue to believe that Hollywood is recession-proof.
Even the bad movies are doing better-than-expected. For example, Sony’s low budget teen comedy Fired Up is a throw-away this weekend, and most of my regular sources had it opening in the $4M-$5M range. Instead, it grabbed a decent $2.3M on its opening day, and Sony says it reached $6M. It will likely finish ninth for the 3-day, but that’s so much better than it could have been.
Luc Besson’s Taken was second for the day at $3.43M, and will finish #32 for the weekend as well with about $11.4M according to Fox. That will give this Pierre Morel-directed action flick a head-turning $95.15M, and it should pass $100M this week.
The $60M Coraline (Focus), the spectacular 3-D film from Henry Selick, will wrap up the weekend at #3 with about $11M, down just 25%, after a $2.8M Friday (fourth for the day). This movie will have banked $53.4M by Monday, and, if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and experience just how far 3-D has evolved from those cardboard glasses with the red and blue lenses.
The Flower Films rom-com He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) seems likely has nosed out the fast-fading Friday The Thirteenth for fourth-place. Based on the Greg Behrendt-Liz Tuccillo self-help book, the Ken Kwapis-directed chick-flick managed another $3M on Friday (#3 for the day), which has translated to $8.54M for the 3-day.
Friday The Thirteenth is drowning, and there's nothing Jason can do about it
Meanwhile, movie-goers showed up at Crystal Lake last weekend, but America’s teens have quickly lost interest. Friday The Thirteenth from director Marcus Nispel and Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes fell to only about $2.8M in second Friday sales (the movie stunned with over $19M last Friday), and Jason has limped to just $7.82M. That is a drop of almost 81%, one of the ten biggest weekend-over-weekend tumbles in modern box office history.
Finally, Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), which will almost certainly win the Academy Award for Best Picture on tonight, added 600 or so playdates Friday, and it picked up another $2.1M or so to start the weekend. Searchlight has handled this film perfectly, and it will finish the weekend with about $8M, which would put its domestic cume at about $98M when it collects Hollywood’s biggest prize. It will probably surpass $100M in the US as soon as Monday as it rides an Oscar wave.
EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY FRIDAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) – $14.65M, $7,210 PTA, $14.65M cume
2. Taken (Fox) – $3.43M, $1,106 PTA, $87.18M cume
3. He’s Not That Into You (Warner Bros) – $3M, $984 PTA, $64.54M cume
4. Coraline (Focus) – $2.8M, $1,299 PTA, $45.13M cume
5. Friday the Thirteenth (Warner Bros) – $2.75M, $1,299 PTA, $49.97M cume
6. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) – $2.4M, $957 PTA, $23M cume
7. NEW – Fired Up (Sony) – $2.3M, $1,271 PTA, $2.3M cume
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $2.1M, $936 PTA, $92.06M cume
9. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) – $1.54M, $545 PTA, $115.92M cume
10. The International (Sony) – $1.42M, $604 PTA, $14M cume
11. Pink Panther 2 (Sony) – $1.1M, $414 PTA, $26.77M cume
12. Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – $1M, $493 PTA, $131.79M cume
STUDIO ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) – $41.12M, $20,236 PTA, $41.12M cume
2. Taken (Fox) – $11.4M, $3,675 PTA, $95.15M cume
3. Coraline (Focus) – $11.03M, $5,119 PTA, $53.39M cume
4. He’s Not That Into You (Warner Bros) – $8.54M, $2,800 PTA, $70.08M cume
5. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $8.05M, $3,587 PTA, $98.02M cume
6. Friday the Thirteenth (Warner Bros) – $7.82M, $2,520 PTA, $55M cume
7. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) – $7.01M, $2,800 PTA, $27.65M cume
8. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) – $7M, $2,469 PTA, $121.38M cume
9. NEW – Fired Up (Sony) – $6M, $3,315 PTA, $6M cume
10. The International (Sony) – $4.45M, $1,882 PTA, $17M cume
11. Pink Panther 2 (Sony) – $3.7M, $1,392 PTA, $29.37M cume
12. Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – $3.64M, $1,793 PTA, $134.43M cume
Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.
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