Many people have a problem with Tyler Perry‘s Madea character, but she’s nevertheless a box office winner. Boo! A Madea Halloween—inspired by a Chris Rock joke—topped Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back to win the box office this past weekend.
Basically, Madea done crossed over.
Reports Variety:
The latest film in the long-running Madea series racked up $27.6 million. Comedian Chris Rock may be entitled to a percentage of the gross. Creator Tyler Perry was inspired to take his pistol-packing grandma trick-or-treating after Rock’s comedian character in 2014’s “Top Five” joked that his latest movie, a passion project about a slave revolt, was going head-to-head at the box office with “Boo! A Madea Halloween.” What was once intended as satire eventually became a seasonally appropriate reality.
“This isn’t the end of the series, it’s just the beginning,” said Jeff Bock, box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations, who noted that Perry also scored with 2013’s “A Madea Christmas.” “There are so many holidays left. There’s Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, and he hasn’t even done a Thanksgiving one yet.”
Boo! A Madea Halloween currently has a rating of 28% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the audience score on the site is “70% liked it.
Per Variety, the Madea flicks have made $380M to date, and that’s on very small budgets.
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Photo: Lionsgate
