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this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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Tyler Perry is very open and honest about one thing when it comes to his movies. This is his quote. I super serve my base.
He knows exactly who likes his movies and what they like and he makes movies for them. He doesn’t give a fuck, his words, about what anyone outside of his base audience thinks of his products.
I think his movies are shit, but I am not in his base audience clearly neither are you
Now, with all that said , there has never been a correlation between the quality of a movie and it’s financial success. yes many great movies are financially successful but pulling numbers out of my ass 10 times that terrible movies are equally financially successful.
Also, a lot of making money in movies is about understanding the finances and business of making movies. Perry has mastered the ecosystem of movie sales.
The recent financial disaster that is "The Bride" is almost completely correlated to poor spending. I believe the studio spent around $190 million after promotion and marketing on what was arguably an amazing indie arthouse film that should have been made on a tiny budget. It's just so niche.
Tyler Perry cranks out low budget films that have an extremely low financial hurdle to clear before they become profitable.
I’m Confused as to why you’re so convinced the bride would be amazing If it had A tiny budget but hey whatever.
It sounds like they think the movie is good, it just took too much money to make given it's lack of appeal to a wide audience. I think that makes sense.
I think they mean IF the Bride didn't have such a massive advertising budget, it probably could have sold more than it cost. Smaller advertising would have resulted in less sales overall, but would require less sales to become profitable.
So profitable makes it amazing?
No. Arguably Amazing is a constant in this equation. Revenue and expenses are the variables.
Visualize that base: people who like Tyler Perry Movies. They would probably say Monty Python are shit and they can’t believe how much garbage they produced.
Basically yeah: Tyler Perry movies are not for you (or me). And other people think the same thing about the stuff we like.
I am nit certain on your first paragraph, but absolutely on your second.
Yeah I could be totally wrong on that example - was just looking for some example.
McDonald's is the most successful restaurant in the world, and it's definitely not because of quality.
Big Bang Theory was the most successful "comedy" of its time.
Almost everything chuck loore does is bland as fuck. Big bang theory, two and a half men, mom, plus a whole shit load more you or me haven't seen one minute of, but got 5 + seasons (and they cancelled pushing daisies after 2!!!! I'm still upset about it).
It seems marketing to the bottom is a lucrative position to be in.
I wonder if there is a list that ranks restaurant chains by kill count.
I’m quite certain it tracks directly with restaurants by revenue. I’m not really aware of many restaurants I’d consider truly healthy. They aren’t all as bad as fast food, but none of them are really in the business of taking care of your health.
Being wealthy does not mean you are:
- smart
- business savvy
- better than anyone else
American success. Obtaining the American dream etc, does not make a person worthy of respect. It does not make them a good person. Judgment on a persons character is irrelevant to their success.
This is something people need to realize asap.
There is an extremely thorough (and long) video on this topic. I didn't think I'd finish it or even watch half when I clicked it, but this guy is very informative and presents the info in a straightforward yet engaging way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpgqWZyAJtM
If you still noped out on that runtime, here is my less professional summary:
Ultimately it is about the race to the bottom of enshittification that we are experiencing in all aspects of life, and "art" transforming into "content" is chief among them. Perry's built in audience is huge, yet one that is practically never pandered to: conservative black women. He's not even particularly good at this and the way he does it is problematic, but it's enough that he is attempting at all. He has realized over the years that it doesn't matter if it's good at all, his core audience will support him because they believe he supports them and their issues.
His rise to being ridiculously OP and successful is propped up by black excellence truthers even though they may or may not actually like his content. He has spun his truly impressive success into deals with streaming services and deteriorated from mediocre to literal slop that rapidly produces enough episodes to get into syndication immediately, because the deals are signed for 100 episodes. Since he writes, directs, produces, and often acts in all these projects, and because the unknown actors do not get a chance over several years/seasons to renegotiate their contracts even if the show gets popular, he takes the lion's share of the profits. 2 lion's shares really.
His influence quickly squashes criticism, and rising stars are usually choked out by the machine of Perry's media empire, bringing the attention back to him. Obviously this also affects the quality of his work.
He also makes some fascinating points about how Perry...kinda CAN'T get more deep with it. To start looking deeper about the topics he discusses would entail stripping away the patriarchy of the black Christian church, or to point a finger towards the societal problems and cycles of abuse that cause the villains of his stories (usually black men) to act the way they do. And as a true believer in capitalism and hard work=success, he can't do that. Making his characters deeper may require addressing the ways that he's a queer man one way or another, whether he's gay, gender fluid, or both, which he can't do as the church has a don't ask don't tell policy. So he's stuck in a pretend world of bootstraps, one dimensional villains, where dressing up as a woman for a minstrel performance is just funny and not misogynist, an indictment, or deeper look at him in any way, and one where the moral thing to do is not only forgiving the cycles of abuse, but buying into it as a strength.
If even that is Tl; Dr: it's the story of every other billionaire, really. He makes his money off of exploiting others. Usually young black people who are hungry for success. Just sucks that he can't have empathy since he literally started from the bottom like the people he manipulates, unlike every other billionaire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpgqWZyAJtM it's long, but f.d. signifier is good at this kind of analysis. he discusses your question directly
Seconded. Came here to say "you should watch FDs video on this topic. I often wondered the same and thoroughly enjoyed this deep dive"
Tyler Perry is very savvy and knows what works and what doesn’t work.
His movies aren’t made for you. They are made for a specific niche who consumes Perry’s movies no matter what.
Perry doesn’t care if the public at large thinks his movies is bad. All he cares about is catering to his niche.
There's an old, old saying: "There is no accounting for taste."
And it cuts both ways.
Tyler Perry does not need anyone else's validation for his success.
/places microphone back on mic stand
Uwe Boll made millions, it's not a difficult job to do the bare minimum at if you have a gimmick or draw for people to watch movies that aren't known for good production, stories, etc and can secure funding from producers.
One does not need to be the best at his job to be a billionaire. He must be good in sales, first. The low quality production can also explain why he may became a billionaire, as he is making huge savings on costs.
Hi Trey. Stop punching down.
If I've learned anything from the Fediverse, it's that people like Tyler Perry ought to be arrested and executed for crimes against humanity. If current governments won't do that, the coming revolution will.
But in all seriousness, there are some very reasonable answers here. Just don't bandy the "b" word around lightly.
Filmmaking works best as a collaborative medium.
When one guy is in charge of the film and everybody working with them is so in awe of them (or financially beholden to them) that they're afraid to say no, afraid to tell him his ideas are dumb ... then his dumb ideas will make it into the film and make it worse.
You also often see it with really big-name directors. Their early films are amazing, but once they have their huge reputation and people are afraid to push back on their bad ideas, their later films can end up being bad, or at least weird.
George Lucas
Definitely one of the big examples there.
Please invest in reading https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-anatomy-of-genres .. & then see movies through new eyes, "eyes to see".
You'll be astonished at how high a percentage of movies are bad, once one understands what he's giving, in that, about the 14 genres that the West has anchored on, & why each genre concentrates only on 1 specific dimension of human-meaning.
( & that was the genius of Star Wars: it included multiple-genres of stuff into its Space Western genre, which it created, from scratch )
Truby's other book, "The Anatomy of Story" is also required for anybody wanting to make story work properly.
People who won't learn from the best-of-the-best, never reach their true-potential, because they're hobbling their leverage.
Ego consistently hobbles leverage, in order to assert that it didn't "need" any other.
That's like ignoring math, while designing aircraft: incompetent.
Stand on the heads of giants, & reach farther into the "sky" of our potential.
Those 2 books ought be required-reading in highschool.
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