Tyler Perry Is About to Open a Studio Lot That Will Rival Hollywood's, as He Leaves Madea Behind
In June of this year, Tyler Perry brought the house down at the BET Awards. During his acceptance speech for the Ultimate Icon honor, Perry issued a powerful call to action on the necessity for African American proprietorship as a path to wealth-building and influence. It's an idea that has been a critical motivator for Perry since his days on the so-called Chitlin Circuit, a historical network of venues that provided black entertainers safe spaces to perform.
Now, Perry controls rights to all of his film and TV work, and the 50-year-old multihyphenate is set to become the outright owner of one of the largest studio lots in America — the first African American to ever do so. On Saturday, Perry will host the official grand opening gala of his new $250 million Atlanta studios, which occupies the former 330-acre Fort McPherson military base, which he purchased in 2015.
In a phone interview this week, Perry said he first started dreaming about owning his own property during his childhood in New Orleans, as the son of a subcontractor father who built houses for a white entrepreneur. "He'd come home, so happy that he made $800 on a home he'd built, but then I'd notice that the white man would sell the house and make $80,000," Perry said. "So I then knew that I always wanted to be the guy who owned and sold the house, rather than the guy who built it."
The studio was once a Confederate Army base, and that irony is not lost on him. "[It] meant that there were Confederate soldiers on that base, plotting and planning on how to keep 3.9 million Negroes enslaved, and now that land is owned by one Negro," he said in his BET speech. "So while you're fighting for a seat at the table, I'll be down in Atlanta building my own."
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/10/tyler-perry-interview-atlanta-studio-1202177041/llolz!!!
