A box office winner despite the critics

Hollywood stood up and took notice of Atlanta-based actor-writer-director-producer Tyler Perry when his first two low-budget films -- “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” and “Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion” -- were huge box office hits.

For the most part, however, critics haven’t been as impressed with the African American filmmaker’s morality tales, in which he also stars as an overweight, no-nonsense elderly woman named Madea and a ribald old man named Uncle Joe. Nor are they likely to be heaping praise on his latest movie, “Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls,” which opens Wednesday.

Though the TV commercials give the impression the film is a romantic comedy, in reality it’s an old-fashioned melodrama with a dose of comedy and plenty of old-time religion. Idris Elba plays a working-class African American who enlists a high-powered attorney (Gabrielle Union) to get custody of his three young daughters from his malevolent ex-wife and her drug-dealing boyfriend.

Perry says he really doesn’t care what critics think about his movies.

“The films I have done so far have been totally for an audience,” he says. “I have never done anything for critics. I just do what feels good to me. It clearly shows the disconnect between audiences and critics with a film of mine that will open and do very well based on people just seeing something they can relate to as opposed to a critic that doesn’t necessarily connect with the material on any level.”

“Daddy’s Little Girls” is Perry’s first original script for the screen. His previous two films, as well as two more he’s slated to direct this year, are adaptations of his successful stage plays.

The film also marks the first time Perry has not appeared in one of his films. He decided to stay behind the camera this time because he was exhausted.

“I had done 300 performances of a play called ‘Madea Goes to Jail’ at the same time I was filming ‘Diary of a Mad Black Woman’ and ‘Madea’s Family Reunion’ and writing a book,” he says. “I thought I was oversaturated and decided to lay low.”

Perry believes his fans won’t be disappointed he’s not in the film. He says that audiences “just trust the Tyler Perry brand.”

“Daddy’s Little Girl” was shot at the new Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. “There are three soundstages,” he says. “It’s 75,000 square feet, and already it’s not enough space. We are in every corner.”

Besides the two upcoming films, Perry is shooting 100 episodes of a TBS sitcom, “House of Payne.”

“When I film this movie in March, I’ll make sure that the stages are right next to each other so I can go from the sitcom set to the movie set,” he says.

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-- Susan King