Tyler Perry needs a revamp
And not in the way you think
By King Williams
Welcome to my freemium newsletter by me, King Williams. A documentary filmmaker, journalist, podcast host, and author based in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a newsletter covering the hidden connections of everything in the world of Atlanta.
Quick backgroundÂ
1) I am also an Atlanta filmmaker who has a documentary on gentrification in Atlanta due later this year as well as one on PBS on March 24th on the East Lake Meadows housing projects. If you want to come to a watch party, make sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter! I also actually root for Tyler Perry to have succeeded in breaking the glass ceiling in business but also see the limitations in the content he’s produced.
He’s doing things that have never been done before in the entertainment business and back in October, I went on a lengthy rant about it on Twitter last fall around the time of his studio opening in Atlanta.
2), As a result of that Twitter thread, I wrote about the significance of Tyler Perry and Oscar Micheaux last October for Atlanta Magazine in an article entitled ‘Tyler Perry is Hollywood and everyone else is taking notes’.
3), With all of that said, I want him to continue in his success and if he’s going to, it’s time for him to revamp. Tyler Perry is arguably at the peak of his powers and this is where he needs to be thinking of his next pivot.
1. Tyler Perry ruffles feathers on Instagram
This January 6th post from multi-hyphenate filmmaker Tyler Perry in January drew the ire and awe of the internet (read the comments).
Perry posted what looked like over a dozen different scripts, ranging from full seasons of new television shows to feature-length movies. What some saw the as hard words and grind, others saw as a corollary to perceived low quality and bad content. And depending on where you sit on Tyler Perry, love, hate, or ambivalence, one thing should be clear, it’s time for a change.
2. Tyler Perry is arguably at his apex
For Perry (50), last fall’s star-studded event was the culmination of 20 years of growth and development, for the Atlanta stage playwright turned multi-media mogul.Â
Ft. Tyler Perry
The 330-acre campus at Fort McPherson gives Perry the second-largest studio by acreage in the United States. The largest studio east of the Mississippi River and the largest entertainment complex owned by any Black person in the world.Â
The idea of a Black-owned studio, sitting on a former confederate army base, in the Blackest city in America—Atlanta, made Tyler Perry’s October 2019 coronation of his studio seem like the true Black Oscars. While that level of success looks to continue in 2020 at Tyler Perry Studios (TPS), there are some other issues that Perry needs to start addressing if he wants the brand to flourish in the future.
3. A Fall from Grace hit at the right time for Tyler Perry
The January 17th release of the latest Tyler Perry Studios release, A Fall from Grace is a certified hit according to Perry.
It was Perry who announced on his social feeds that A Fall from Grace drew 26 million viewers in the first week, making it the largest first week of any program on Netflix. A Fall from Grace became the largest first week of any Black program on Netflix, just ahead of the 23 million people who turned into May 2019’s Ava Duvernay helmed When They See Us miniseries.
3B. Black Twitter’s virality leads to another hit
Black Twitter once again manifested a hit, (see the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich in August 2019) as the conversation around the film reverberated online.
Black Twitter’s initial conversation on the film moved across other social media platforms, drawing millions of free impressions in the process. This combination of core fans, detractors, Black Twitter, and curious onlookers helped to produce arguably Tyler Perry’s most viewed film ever. Whatever was pointed out such as the noticeable production gaffes, concerns over wig selections, and or plot inconsistencies would normally get a 2nd-year film student put on probation. They all resulted in a massive hit streaming product for Perry and a look at what the future of TPS could look like.
This couldn’t have happened at a better time for Perry, who like Adam Sandler before him, reached his commercial box office apex years ago but now can pivot to even bigger successes due to streaming.
4. Tyler Perry has been in box office decline for more than a decade
Tyler Perry as a box office force peaked over 10 years ago, with 2009’s Madea Goes to Jail performing at a career-best $41m opening weekend and finishing just under $91m at the box office. Since then, no Madea film has finished above $75m at the box office, and only two non-Madea films, 2010’s Why Did I Get Married Too and 2013’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor have finished above $50m between 2010-19.
He’s been the figurehead of over 25 films in a 15-year span, while impressive, it shows how much brand equity he has lost at the box office. Box office generates the highest amount of revenue and pure cash flow, but declining earnings and higher budgets put his overall company in trouble.
A few things:
TPS’s budgets have been increasing while his box office is decreasing
Ever since his fourth film, Why Did I Get Married? in 2007, the average Tyler Perry film has cost between $20-25m, but routinely finishing in the $30-40m range.
These newer films are already in the red before even factoring in costs such as distribution costs, marketing, and box office revenue splits, where it’s roughly 50-50 on overall revenue. A TPS film needs to now realistically clear $50m+ at the box office to be in the black for both TPS and their distributor.
TPS’s earlier films have cost nearly a quarter of the budgets of the current films and produced twice as much revenue. As a result of this decline, Perry and Lionsgate parted ways in 2014, only to loop back for two Madea movies; 2016’s, Boo: A Madea Halloween, and 2017’s, Boo 2, (obviously).
TPS’s core fans have lost interest in all of the non-Madea films theatrically
When comparing the box office over his career, it’s clear even TPS’s most loyal fans have mostly abandoned the films theatrically. We can tell they have soured on them based on their declining rotten tomatoes scores and attendance at the box office. The TPS films of today are half of the box office of yesterday, and this number actually gets worse when factoring in the inflation of ticket prices.
TPS is essentially a stage and television company now.
As the company has seemed to continue a decline at the box office, it’s been consistently strong in stage revenues and expanding its television footprint.
His stage plays have been consistent hits since 1998’s I Know I Been Changed, up until his most recent 2019-20 run of the Madea’s Farewell tour.
On the television side, Tyler Perry’s loyal audience has essentially either revamped or provided a stable source of ratings now for three different cable networks: TBS, OWN, and now BET.
Perry currently has four tv shows on the air across two networks and just launched the 5th show on a third network Nickelodeon, the show Young Dylan, based on the viral social media star Dylan Gilmer.
TPS is built for volume and community viewings, streaming is perfect for that.
Tyler Perry for 20 years has built up a volume of recorded material that has given him leveraging power no one person in the film or television industry has.
Despite the recent nine-figure paydays of tv veterans like $1 billion from Comcast/NBC to Dick Wolf (Law & Order), $300 million from Netflix to Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story) or $100 million also from Netflix to Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy), none of these creators own their content. Despite the larger paydays for those respective showrunners, Perry’s joint venture deal with BET+ is arguably the better play.
The deal is part of his overall deal with parent company CBS-Viacom that he signed back in 2017. The deal not only gives Perry cable television support and theatrical distribution but also gives Perry a free home for his content that’s not available on Netflix or Hulu. Fans of Tyler Perry don’t need to go to the box office they can enjoy his content at home.
5. The future of Tyler Perry Studios should be investing in non-Tyler Perry content
TPS currently has a direct partner for cable (BET/OWN), streaming (BET+), and theatrical releases (Paramount), something no other filmmaker or producer has, Tyler Perry, doesn’t pitch, he is the pitch. The best long-term strategy is to start setting up the next film/tv/theatrical talents and IP to further the TPS brand.
But TPS 2.0 will likely need to feature films at or substantially lower than TPS 1.0’s production budgets as this pivot will likely need some time to develop its audience. Considering the run of smaller, Black auteur-driven films throughout the 2010s (Moonlight, Get Out), the pivot could be via TPS directly or through his short-lived 34th Street Films. This would operate the same way New Line Cinema did for Warner Bros., providing newer, edgier fare to standalone while also expanding the brand.
Compare the average $20m budget of a Tyler Perry film compared to other films starring and centering Black characters:
12 Years A Slave, the 2013 Best Picture winner, cost $23m to produce and grossed $57m domestically and $131m internationally.Â
Moonlight, the 2016 Best Picture winner, cost $1.5m to produce and grossed $28m domestically and $65m internationally.
Green Book, the 2018 Best Picture winner, cost $22m to produce, grossed $85m domestically and $245m internationally (including $71m in China, which nearly never shows any Black films!).
Get Out, the 2016 Best Picture nominee, cost $1.5m to produce and grossed $176m domestically and $79m internationally.Â
BlakKklansman, a 2018 Best Picture nominee, cost $15m to produce and grossed $49m domestically and $44m internationally.Â
Hidden Figures, the 2016 Best Picture nominee, cost $25m to produce, filmed in Atlanta, grossed $170m domestically and $65m Internationally.
6. The Future of TPS may be appearing before our eyes
While shows like Young Dylan on Nickelodeon and Sistas on BET are a start, they are still the brainchildren of Perry. If he can stay on this diversified route, he will secure the TPS brand for years to come. And potentially increase value in the process.
The greatest value creation of TPS is to have several currently successful shows alongside several successful fully-owned IPs. Both Sistas, a smash cable soap opera, and its counterpart, Bruh, a BET+ exclusive, step in the right direction. Perry should first consider just getting more hits on first-run cable television while maintaining his successful syndication ventures. This volume makes a package more valuable for licensing to streaming companies. As well as keeps his product where his audience is, at home, on-demand, and now streaming.
Perry also could start mining additional characters such as Mr. Brown and Cora in secondary tv movies and other appearances in the Madea-verse to expand their second lives as vehicles for merchandise. A strategy implemented most successfully by Disney’s IP of Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars.
7. The Blumhouse model could be tweaked for TPS
Blumhouse, the small horror/thriller/sci-fi and sometimes Oscar bait studio (see: Whiplash) is the best company TPS 2.0 could emulate. The company’s most known film, 2017’s Get Out was made only for $4.5m, debuted at #1, and made over $250m worldwide on top of being an Oscar-winning success. Or take 2016’s Best Picture winner Moonlight, which was made for $1.5m, which may be about the same as Tyler Perry’s average per-film director and producer fee.
7B. The Future is Blumhouse
The best model of how to make that work would be to use the micro-budget filmmaking philosophy of producer Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity/Get Out).
His production company Blumhouse routinely releases profitable films made for less than $10m. For the amount spent on one Tyler Perry-helmed film, you could’ve supported a broader mix of films. There’s no reason why instead of pushing out two-three Tyler Perry-helmed films per year reduced to one Tyler Perry film per year. And redirecting those funds into new films or co-producing alongside other film studios.Â
7C. The Blumhouse production model
Tyler Perry should strongly consider a Blumhouse method of giving new filmmakers and indie scripts a chance in the under $5m range with more creative control. Bloomhouse utilizes its distribution with Universal for theatrical US, International, and home video. The company specializes in small, union-crewed films, which use small budgets and unique concepts to power its films. All while the stars eschew their usual fees in lieu of a piece of the overall box office.
At the current cost of $20m to produce a Tyler Perry film, we could get 4 or more new films per year, greatly expanding his opportunities at the box office. While TPS’s international distribution has been nearly nonexistent for most of his career. His films don’t travel well overseas and when they are released, it’s a complete flop at the international box office. A diversified portfolio would make not only enlarge his territory domestically but would also expose him to a global audience of customers for the first time.
8. What could the future of TPS look like?
Tyler is rare in being able to own his IP 100% and has mainstream distribution partners. Tyler’s reliance on distribution partners for television, film and now streaming with Netflix, gives him the opportunity to asses what his company will be…
8B. TPS needs a pipeline
Tyler’s long-term problem is a lack of a discernible pipeline of new writers, producers, and directors who can advance the TPS brand. Tyler should be taking a page from recently departed Disney CEO Bob Iger, whose tenure as the CEO of Disney from 2005-2020 was a focused approach to acquiring brands with rabid fan bases such as Lucasfilm, Pixar, and Marvel. While also building pipelines of directors, writers, and producers to execute these projects. There’s no reason TPS can’t do the same.
8C. TPS should be focusing on developing its own pipeline of superstars considering the established footholds it has in stage, television, and film.
TPS should also strongly consider building out its operations in animation and audio, in particular podcasts and audiobooks.
Both podcasts and audiobooks are not only potentially high-margin businesses for TPS, but they also represent new potential revenue sources. Podcasts are primarily ad-based businesses, (see my article on Spotify) that have relatively low awareness to the general public, and have very few players of scale serving Black audiences. TPS could own two niche marketplaces at once and use these as a way to both market upcoming projects as well as test new creatives to the market before investing heavily in his three established businesses.
If TPS decides to ever go this route, amplifying new projects, building out intellectual properties (IP), fostering new fan bases, and creating new content within the TPS brand, we could have the first multi-billion-dollar Black media company. And there’s great evidence that this would work, just ask Disney. Disney has executed a strategy similar to this for the last decade, enhancing the sub-brands at home in the US and abroad. This strategy was so successful, Disney produced 80% of the top ten global box office hits in the US in 2019.
8D. Tyler Perry as 21st Century Walt Disney
Tyler Perry could be Walt Disney, a visionary figurehead of a media empire that grew through providing joy for his base but employed artisans to work and expand stories and experiences on behalf of the brand. But the Tyler Perry media brand needs to be associated with a more diversified product offering than what’s currently taking place. Tyler Perry is one man and that can only go so far OR reach a logical endpoint.
If Tyler Perry stopped filmmaking tomorrow what happens to his deals? His studio? His real estate holdings? It’s time for a revamp and maybe Tyler listens.
P.S. You can be more about Tyler Perry’s sales funnel an excellent article from last fall from Trapital, the hip-hop business newsletter that I am a member of and I cannot recommend enough from Dan Runcie.
https://trapital.co/2019/10/17/how-tyler-perry-built-a-customer-centric-empire/
-KJW