UPDATE – What will it mean if Tyler Perry’s ‘The Family That Preys’ makes more money than ‘Burn After Reading’?

‘Burn After Reading’ opens at #1 and ‘The Family That Preys’ is #2.  From Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily:

Focus Features’ political comedy Burn After Reading finished No 1 for the weekend with $19.4 million, and Lionsgate’s The Family That Preys No. 2 with $18 million. With yet another PG-rated Tyler Perry crossover hit on its hands, the studio understandably made an overall deal with the writer/producer/director/actor recently. Given that Preys was playing in 581 less theaters than Burn yet had a better per screen average ($8,705 vs $7,319), it’s quite a feat that it finished Friday neck and neck with the first post-Oscar Coen Brothers feature starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton who have either won or been nominated for Academy Awards. Then again it was R-rated, and Prey was PG (but starring Kathy Bates who also has an Oscar and Alfre Woodard a nominee). Burn received better reviews than Prey. So it’s a wash.

A brief lesson on Hollywood bankability.

Awards are lovely but where’s the dough?

Tyler Perry’s Meet The Browns grossed

$20, 082, 809 with 2,006 screens during its opening weekend

and George Clooney’s Leatherheads grossed

$12, 682, 595 with 2,769 screens during its opening weekend.

Leatherheads has two Academy Award@ winners in Clooney and Renee Zellweger and an actor with buzz in The Office’s John Krasinski in the leads AND more screens while Meet The Browns has Angela Bassett and the Tyler Perry brand.

Now Tyler Perry complains A LOT about how he’s treated by the major studios and mainstream media. He feels disrespected by them because he has achieved success according to the standards set by the mainstream (make money, make money, MAKE MONEY) meanwhile George Clooney has awards but IS not exactly making bank with his handsome, cradle robbing self.

And Perry has a point: Time attempts to explain his appeal and wonder if it’s minstrelsy while George Clooney gets the cover with the tagline ‘The Last Movie Star.’

I’m guessing that Leatherheads looks better than Meet The Browns (Tyler needs an upgrade in production designers and cinematographers — I recommend Mayne Schyler Berke for production design and Shane Hurlbut for cinematograpy — they both created a warm, inviting palette for Sanaa Hamri’s Something New) but there’s no denying that Meet…. has tapped into an audience that is loyal and doesn’t evaporate on opening weekend.

Also. some cultural critics are worried about the simplistic, moralistic bent of Perry’s films. I do hope that these critics can find it in their hearts to acknowledge why that bent works….Perry’s audience is very much at home with his raison d’être. In the same way Judd Apatow has found his very profitable niche (white boys who are afraid to grow up but make you laugh until they do), Perry has found his. It may not sit well with people who think pop culture for black people should be solely in the hands of the Talented Tenth but you know what?

It’s too late. Perry is the guest who dropped in for a glass of water and decided to stay for dinner. Most likely also will be paying for the dinner, too.

Back to Clooney and his bankability problem. George call Tyler. Sit down and mix it up. Who knows what Clooney with his finely tuned sense of the comedic absurd and principled engagement with the world can do with Perry’s populist insight and success?

All I ask is that Tyler hangs up Madea for the next year.

Tyler Perry Eyes Wider Appeal (THR)

Box Office Mojo

God and Tyler Perry vs. Hollywood (Time)

An Open Letter To Tyler Perry (The Root)

UPDATE: Tyler Perry, The Rock, Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg Beat Clooney (Deadline Hollywood Daily)

What if Tyler Perry and Judd Apatow swapped on their next movies?

You know Judd Apatow could be Madea and Tyler Perry could play some emotionally stunted white dude who loves girls yet still finds them icky?

Hollywood, this is a freebie from Tallulah to you!

Randomness…

Playwright Keith Josef Adkins asks Tyler Perry why? (The Root)

AP discovers the Lebron Vogue cover controversy. Lebron goes all Tiger Woods about it and says: meh.

New York’s new governor liked to party (NY Observer)

Quote of the week: “The East Village is established — we Japanese prefer Harlem as a new frontier. And in Tokyo, dating a black person is like a trophy for girls Coming from a single-race country, they exoticize foreign races.”

Motonobu Otsu, owner, The Winery (in Harlem)

Comparing Hillary Clinton to that fake gangbanger Margaret Seltzer is wrong but oh so funny. (NY Mag Intel)

Maybe being able to watch your brain in action will stop you from going home from that sleazy singer-songwriter after the show  the next time you think about doing it?  (Ted.com)

Tallulah plays Michael Musto’s Blind Item Game

You can caption this because Tallulah is tired.

The Village Voice’s La Dolce Musto goes totally blind this week and Tallulah wants to play his sick, twisted game of titillating gossip-bombs of what goes on behind the scenes of this business THEY call show.

What couple almost split up during the making of that movie because she was on fire with jealousy that he got to show his actual talent? (No worries. It totally bombed.)

Tyler Perry and Janet Jackson. (I’m kidding! Of course it’s J. Lo and Skeletor!)

Which same star did it with that married but gay male socialite?

Justin Timberfake and Fabian Basabe.

Which charismatic pit bull is described by some who’ve worked with her as a monster off-camera as well, someone who took her assigned role a little too seriously and became quite power-mad in the head?

Star Jones.

What lovable showbiz relic is so needy that if you show her a little kindness, she’ll start calling you at two in the morning for lengthy chats every night for months?

Barbara Walters.

What much younger songstress has very little actual chemistry with the husband, probably because she’s a big old lesbo?

Katherine McPhee.

What transforming young movie star already seemed problematic last year when, in the middle of a press junket, he would snap at underlings, “Where’s my cigarette?” then would rudely bolt for a puffing break when he got one?

Shia LaBeouf

Which reality star can be seen being fisted by an admirer in a kooky video that’s making the underground rounds? Should we give him a hand?

ALL OF THEM.

What model he was once aligned with also maintains much glamour and mystery by keeping her dumb trap shut (except to open it for drugs)?

Gisele Bundchen.

Which legendary black singer was spotted at a store, where she was screaming into her cell phone, “Doesn’t anyone read in your office? Don’t you understand English? I told you to arrange that flight!”?

Diana Ross.

What ex-Times critic looks back on his gig there as a poisonous time filled with backstabbing and one-upmanship?

ALL OF THEM.

Which swiveling tartlet’s people brutally Tasered a young fan who simply wanted to tell her he loves her?

This is really tough…it could be Amanda Bynes, Kelly Cuoco, Miley Cyrus.

Which exotic, young hotshot designer has been supposedly doing it with that black rapper with many children?

Zac Posen and Flavor Flav.

Which hotel just underwent some firings because staffers admitted a 16-year-old model to the in-house club and she ended up so intoxicated she capped off her night reclining in an ambulance?

Soho House.