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That’s right, the number 1 movie was Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail.  I was a little shocked to see this as the number 1 movie in America.  I didn’t really see any previews for this movie and I really don’t know who Tyler Perry is, but apparently a lot of other people do.  I wanted to learn more about this movie so I dug a little more into some statistics for the movie.  Here are the statistics for the top 5 movies this past weekend (February 20, 2009) from Rotten Tomatoes:

If you look at these stats Madea Goes to Jail crushed all the other movies in the top 5 when it comes to amount of money generated per theater at a whopping $20.2 k.  Never mind how the critics gave it a 26% rating (rotten tomatoes averages all the critics reviews and calculates a rating), but if it manages to be as successful this weekend then it will be on target to blow Slumdog Millionaire out of the water!  I was looking online for the budget for this movie and some guy estimated that the budget for Madea Goes to Jail was maybe around 10 million dollars.  If that is the case this movie is going to make a killing for the studio and its investors.  Contrast that profit with that of Coraline.  Coraline’s budget was set around $75 million and took 5 years to make.  So far it has made only $53.8 million which means it still hasn’t broken even.  Who needs fancy movies with 3d effects and plot?  All you need is Tyler Perry in a fat suit and a dress. He’s the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I’ll be honest when I watch trailers for movies normally I group which demographic is probably going to watch it.  My judgment is not very politically correct and typically involves lots of stereotypes, but that’s how I organize movies.  Examples:

• Sex and the City: bitter White women
• How Stella Got Her Groove Back:  Black women
• Paul Blart Mall Cop:  White people and their kids
• He’s Just Not That Into You:  bitter White women again
• Street Fighter the Legend of Chung Li:  Asian people, especially those who played the video game
• Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail:  Black people

In the case of Madea Goes to Jail, I’m not sure if only black people went to go see this movie.  According to this yahoo news article:

Women accounted for 71 percent of the audience and blacks 72 percent — typical for Perry releases… The Hispanic contribution jumped to 13 percent from 5 percent, while the white audience was steady at 6 percent.

So it would seem if these numbers are correct black women are a big fan of Tyler Perry, Hispanics have increased their affinity to Tyler Perry, and the same white people who watched his previous movies came out again.  I always forget just because it’s a movie I wouldn’t watch that it doesn’t mean the rest of America feels the same way.  But what I really want to know is who watched Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail, why did you go see it, and what did you think of the movie?

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