This Hollywood Reporter story says Tyler Perry––whose most recent film, Meet the Browns, opened with $20 million but failed to hit number one as so many of Perry’s films have, and dropped off sharply in its second week in release––is looking to attract a crossover (white, suburban) audience without alienating his working-class Black base.  And he’s got a foolproof plan: Perry’s next film, titled The Family That Preys, is set to star box office it girl Kathy Bates, who, of course, has proven time and time again to have a hypnotic lure on white audiences. I literally cannot hold on to a dollar bill if a Kathy Bates movie is playing in the vicinity.

In all honestly, this might be a smart move: if Perry’s broad comedy-spiked faith-and-family melodramas have a natural chance of crossing over to any white sub-demo, it’s older, middle-class women. But the makeup of the movies themselves is only half the battle. Even leaving race aside, if Lionsgate (for whom, as Carl DiOrio puts it in the THR story, “getting into the Tyler Perry business has been like acquiring a license to print money”) really wants to open up the appeal of these movies, they’ve got to make some changes in the way they’re marketed and released.

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