Tagged: Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail

Old Murphy shtick outdraws teen rockers

It’s an old, tried and true formula: put a black comic in drag as a mouthy, feisty old woman and let the laughs roll in. Eddie Murphy popularized it and Martin Lawrence capitalized on it; now Tyler Perry is outdrawing the teeny-bopper band, The Jonas Brothers, at the box office.

Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail drew $16.1 million in its second week in release, bringing its two-week take to $64.5 million. That was good enough to secure the top box office spot last weekend as The Jonas Brothers 3D concert movie managed only $12.5 million after a strong start on Friday. And Oscar upstart Slumdog Millionaire won’t need the services of immigration lawyers just yet, as the Bollywood hit has climbed to an even $12 million and third place overall on the box office charts, after sixteen weeks in release.

Taken fell to fourth and was just shy of raking in another $10 million. Below that, everything feel well short of box office glory, including an eighth-place finish and under $5 million for the new Street Fighter live-action film.

Perry On Top

Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail topped Oscar weekend box office by a huge margin last weekend as the “monster of indy black comedy” swallowed first position hole with a total take of $41 million in its initial bow. No Kohler faucet were harmed in the making of that movie, either!

But the rest of the weekend box office was hurting as only two other films broke the $10 million barrier; children’s animated fantasy Coraline, as well as the thriller-action flick Taken, but with about $11 million coming in last weekend. Everything else was down, but most notable was the plunge taken by Friday the 13th, which dropped over 80 percent on bad word-of-mouth. The slasher rehash took in just under $8 million, falling all the way from first to sixth.

Worst initial bow of the weekend goes to Fired Up, which managed only $5.4 million.