If a guy had two previous number one movies under his belt, a top-rated sitcom currently on the air and continued selling out live shows across the country you’d think Hollywood might take a little notice. But when box office analysts were making their predictions about last weekend, no one guessed that Tyler Perry would be sitting at the top spot. Cut to: the following Monday when Perry’s new relationship drama, Why Did I Get Married, out-grossed all newcomers (including starring vehicles for George Clooney, Mark Whalberg and Kate Blanchet) with a 21 million dollar haul. Hardly a surprise for anyone keeping tabs on his impressive track record, so why was the industry caught so off guard?
Perhaps it’s simply part of Perry’s long history of defying expectations--even his own.
“I Think I’m learning as a director with each film” he said at a press conference last Thursday “I can’t even watch Family Reunion when it’s on Showtime now” (referring to Madea’s Family Reunion, his last film to come in number one a the box office.) “I look at it and I ask myself; you really put the camera there?”
You don’t expect those kind of self-effacing words from a guy like Perry, someone who managed to pull himself out of an impoverished childhood in New Orleans to build a small media empire. But despite his years of success he comes across as a guy who’s still looking to grow as an artist.
“Right now I love doing these relationship pictures," he confesses, "but I do eventually want to move into other territory.”
A jazz musician biopic, a Holocaust drama and even a science fiction movie were just a few of the potential projects Perry said he’d like to tackle in the future.
But as Perry continues to grow the question remains; will Hollywood start to pay attention? For the moment it doesn’t really seem to matter because the only critics voice he’s listening to is his own.
