Fans of Tyler Perry’s famed Madea character will see her in a very different light come this Halloween as the mouthy matriarch returns to the big screen in Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween, which opens Friday, October 21.
As everyone knows, since her feature film debut in Perry’s 2005 flick, Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Mabel “Madea” Simmons is the wrong one to mess with and doesn’t take junk off of anybody. But even the strong-willed feisty grandmother appears to have met her match as she spends a hilarious, haunted Halloween fending off killers, paranormal poltergeists, and zombies while keeping a watchful eye on a group of misbehaving teens.
So how did we get here? What gave Perry the idea to bring Madea back to the big screen in a horror-comedy? It turns out that Chris Rock is to blame as Perry explains:
I never wanted to do it. That’s not my thing. I don’t do witches and goblins and demons at all. In Chris Rock’s movie, “Top Five”, he has a scene with a fictional movie called “Boo! A Madea Halloween”. He called to get permission to do it and I said ‘Yeah man, go ahead and do it. Sounds great!” Then (movie studio) Lionsgate saw it and said “Oh, we HAVE to do this movie!” It took me about a year and a half to do it because I couldn’t come up with a concept that worked for me and again I just don’t do witches and demons, but yes it began with Chris’ movie and here we are.
In addition to the movie’s hilarious premise, the film also marks the first time that fan favorites Hattie, Aunt Bam and Madea appear together as a trio while attempting to navigate the pressing situation at hand while steering clear of an assortment of goblins and ghosts.
According to Perry, writing for Madea, who is also currently a voice option on the traffic and navigation app, Waze, is the easiest task to complete when it comes to all of all his projects:
She’s so much fun to write for. “The Haves and The Have Nots”…I have to concentrate like “Let’s focus. Let’s twist. Let’s turn.” “If Loving You Is Wrong” is the same way. For me it gets heavy and dark and when it gets to that point that I’m laboring to write these things, I don’t like that. Madea’s no labor. The writing just flows with funny situations. It really just writes itself.
