Madea Is Back And Netflix Has Got Her

You can’t keep a salty-tongued, gun-slinging, larger than larger-than-life woman down. Madea, Tyler Perry’s rambunctious creation, is coming out of retirement for a new Netflix Inc NFLX film.

An Unexpected Reprise: Perry created the Madea character for his 1999 play “I Can Do Bad All by Myself,” donning the old-lady costume when the actor cast for the role failed to show up. The character’s ebullient personality and knack for zany aphorisms — “You’re gonna wish that sperm did a backstroke when it met the egg that made you!” — created an audience favorite, with Perry bringing back Madea for additional plays before showing up on screen in the 2005 “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.”

According to a Variety report, Perry’s Madea appeared in 11 films that grossed more than $1 billion at the box office.

The character was supposed to have been retired with the 2020 “Madea’s Farewell Play” streamed on BET+, a unit of ViacomCBS VIAC, but Perry announced on Instagram that another Madea film is now being planned.

“We need to laugh, man,” Perry said in an Instagram video where Madea’s voice kept percolating through his natural speech. “Too much is going on in the country. We need to laugh.”

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A Focus On Streaming: The new Madea project is Perry’s latest production for Netflix, following his 2020 thriller “Fall From Grace,” which was seen by 39 million households in its first month in streaming, and “A Jazzman’s Blues,” a domestic melodrama scheduled for a 2022 release.

The new Madea film, which does not have a working title, will be shot at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta for a 2022 Netflix release.

This has been a busy year for Perry. In addition to his own films, he co-starred opposite Angelina Jolie in “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” which was released last month, and is part of the all-star Netflix “Don’t Look Up” movie and as a voice performer in the animated “PAW Patrol: The Movie.”

In April, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award during the Academy Awards telecast in tribute to his philanthropic endeavors.

(Madea photo courtesy of Lionsgate.)