Chris Rock joke inspired ‘Madea Halloween’
Chris Rock does not appear in “Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween.”
But the comedy, which opens Oct. 21, would probably not exist without him.
In his 2014 film “Top Five,” Rock’s filmmaker character made a joke about audiences flocking to see a film called “Boo! A Madea Halloween.” Rock contacted Perry for permission to use the quip, and Perry obliged.
When executives at Lionsgate, which has partnered with Perry on his films, heard the joke, they called Perry, saying it sounded like a great idea for an actual movie.
The religious Perry, not a fan of witches and demons, whose films and plays have a faith-based message, hesitated. “But then I thought of a clever way to do it,” he said, “and it worked out.”
In the film, Madea, who is spending Halloween keeping an eye on her boy-crazy great-niece, winds up facing off against zombies and other scary creatures. Perry has called the film his “funniest yet.” A preview audience at an early screening in Atlanta laughed consistently at the comic mayhem.
The Madea character has been at the core of Perry’s successful empire with 2009’s “Madea Goes to Jail” scoring more than $95 million and “Madea’s Witness Protection” in 2012 netting north of $65 million at the box office. His non-Madea films – which include “Why Did I Get Married?” – have also performed well.
He is one of three directors – the others being Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis – who have had nine films open with more than $20 million.
On his films and TV series, Perry exerts almost total creative control – producing, writing, directing and sometimes appearing.
He scored an unprecedented $200 million deal with TBS in 2007 to produce “House of Payne,” a family sitcom, even though he had never produced a minute of television. The premiere drew record ratings and introduced the 10/90 model of syndication, in which a cable station buys 10 episodes of a series, and if the ratings are good, 90 more are ordered.
When Perry made an exclusive deal with Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network to produce the outlet’s first scripted series, those shows, including the soap opera “The Have and the Have Nots,” helped reverse the fortunes of the outlet, which had been struggling since launching in 2011, and still remain among the network’s biggest hits.
In addition to his other OWN shows – “If Loving You Is Wrong,” “Love Thy Neighbor” and “For Better or Worse” – Perry’s “Too Close to Home,” about a young woman confronting her troubled past after an alleged affair with the president of the United States, premiered in September to strong ratings on TLC and has already been renewed for a second season.