As Hollywood studio bosses fret over whether stars can still open movies based on their name alone, and therefore whether they're worth their enormous salaries, there is always one man who proves that, yes, a name can still mean a lot of box office. And you've probably never even heard of him.
Tyler Perry's latest movie, Why Did I Get Married?, enjoyed a $21.5million opening in the US, giving him his fourth big opening, despite the fact that his films generally cost about as much as the catering budget on a Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts movie and uniformly suffer from critical apathy (Why Did I Get Married? scored a 43% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).
Originally a playwright, who performed his own work, Perry makes movies based on good Christian family values, preaching the benefits of sitting down and talking about stuff, and all have been very popular with African American women, who, many would argue, are under represented in modern American cinema. If you want to know more about Perry, you can read a good EW article here.
The rest of the chart was pretty lacklustre. The Rock's The Game Plan held strongly with $11.5million in its third week, bring its total to just shy of $60million. Mark Wahlberg/Joaquin Phoenix crime drama We Own The Night had a so-so first weekend on wide release, taking $11million. Elizabeth: The Golden Age took a less than regal bow – the follow-up to Oscar-winning Elizabeth, could gather only $6.183 million.
One film that's been doing very well with little attention over the past few weeks is Across The Universe, the musical based on Beatles songs, but not actually about The Beatles. It's performed strongly on very limited release and added another $4million on its first week on more than a handful of cinemas.