Guess who’s coming back?
Tyler Perry is reviving his beloved Madea character for Netflix in 2022. Perry announced the news on Tuesday with a video on Instagram of him slipping in and out of his Madea voice, Entertainment Tonight reported.
“Hey, guess what’s happening?” he says. “Madea’s coming to Netflix. We need to laugh, man, too much is going on in the country. We need to laugh, so, I was done, but she’s coming back. Madea on Netflix. I can’t wait.”
Perry is rebooting the Madea character in a 12th installment, “A Madea Homecoming,” for Netflix after bidding farewell to the character in 2019, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Perry said he planned to part ways with the foul-mouthed grandma at the premiere of the franchise’s 11th film, “A Madea Family Funeral.”
“I don’t want to be her age playing her, so it was time to shut it down and move on,” Perry told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019. “I’ve got some other things I want to do. … I’m going to do something different.”
The new feature will be shot at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The character of Madea was first introduced onstage in the 1999 play, “I Can Do Bad All by Myself,” the website reported. Since then, the character has expanded into other theater productions, films, television shows and a book.
Perry, 51, is also developing a prequel series on Showtime, based on Madea’s life in Atlanta circa 1972, Entertainment Tonight reported.
Perry will write and direct “A Madea Homecoming,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. His company’s president of production and development, Michelle Sneed, will handle executive producer tasks along with Perry, the website reported. Will Areu and Mark Swinton will be the producers.
Perry’s 2020 film, “A Fall From Grace” on Netflix, was seen by 20 million households in the streaming service, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Madea character has appeared in 11 plays, 11 movies, a handful of TV episodes and one animated feature called “Madea’s Tough Love,” according to the Times. They have grossed more than $1 billion at the North American box office, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Madea character, however, has been criticized, most notably by director Spike Lee, for its resemblance to minstrel shows that depicted racist stereotypes of Black people, the Times reported.
Perry answered Lee in 2011, retorting that the franchise was being unfairly maligned, according to the newspaper.