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.

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Filmmaker Tyler Perry, with Oprah Winfrey as a role model, has consistently outsmarted Hollywood moguls since his debut feature Diary of a Mad Black Women. That Gospel-infused “fat-suit-in-drag” comedy was made for a mere $5.5M and scored an opening weekend of $21.9M, ultimately generating $50.6M in domestic sales.

The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well with Tyler Perry

At only 39, Perry is building an empire. He officially christened Tyler Perry Studios last October in Atlanta with a star-studded event. The multi-million dollar project is a sprawling 30-acre working production facility in southwestern Atlanta, and the opening night party featured appearances by legendary African American actors like Sidney Poitier, Cicely Tyson, Ruby Dee, Lou Gossett, Jr. and Will Smith.

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Although America is suffering through its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, there is no recession in the movie business. Led by the Warner Bros reboot of Friday the Thirteenth and a couple of surprisingly strong chick flicks, Hollywood’s top twelve grossing movies may grab a combined $201.5M over the long President’s Day weekend holiday, which marks an all-time best for the annual 4-day movie-going bonanza.

TOP GROSSING PRESIDENT’S WEEKENDS FOR HOLLYWOOD
- combined gross of top 12 films -
1. 2009 – $201.5M (estimated)
2. 2007 – $167.8M
3. 2008 – $141.1M
4. 2003 – $141M
5. 2005 – $137.1M

Director Marcus Nispel (2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake) and the Platinum Dunes production company have gotten the all-new Friday the Thirteenth off to a spectacular $19.3M opening day. That could translate to a well-above-expectations $47M by Tuesday morning. The new Jason restart quickly follows the Platinum Dunes success of The Unborn, released on January 9 to a $19.8M 3-day take. That David D. Goyer written and directed genre pic was made for just $16M, and The Unborn has generated an estimated $42M in the US.

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The Drew Barrymore-produced romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You has made the jump from catch-phrase to self-help book to movie hit. With an all-star cast this classic ‘chick flick” appears to be winning the weekend after posting a spectacular $10.5M in opening day ticket sales. That should mean a 3-day start of $27.4M or so, easily out-pacing holdover Taken (Fox) and three other new wide releases. With this kind of opening, Not That Into You could reach almost $60M by the end of next weekend (a 4-day Presidents/Valentine’s combo), which would forecast a potential $90M in US ticket sales.

The new movie developed by New Line and now released by Warner Bros is based on the book of the same name co-written by former Sex & the City scribes Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo. The line itself has come to be a reassuring fallback for women in the dating scene (and I’m guessing single guys have adopted the mentality as well in the rough-and-tumble world of dating).

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After a spectacular $1 billion dollar-grossing January for the movie industry, Hollywood trots out four new titles for the first weekend of February. The first month of ’09 was nothing short of spectacular, featuring nine releases with 3-day openings of $17M or better led by Paul Blart: Mall Cop ($31.8M) and the wide break of Gran Torino ($29.5M).

According to industry tracking, it looks like the new Warner Bros romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You will win the coming weekend. The early reviews are coming in a bit lukewarm (42% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but it doesn’t matter especially. Awareness is high and Definite Interest and First Choice numbers are exceedingly solid, especially among women.

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