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Tyler Perry’s real estate in Hollywood has accrued to such high value over the past decade, he now steers the ship of what some consider an unrivaled dynasty.

The 43-year-old’s immense success has made him one of the most prominent figures in the entertainment industry, an actor, producer, writer and director who discovered the zeitgeist, aggressively rode its wings, and mounted a multi-million dollar regime.

Most significantly, he did so all at his own direction.

“He’s the cornerstone of black entertainment,” Janet Jeffries, an executive at Lawrence Bender Productions tells theGrio. “He makes so much money domestically that a studio like Lionsgate will always be in the Tyler Perry business – whether he does the Madea movies or he does these dramas – because they pay for themselves. If it’s a Tyler Perry movie, you do it. It’s like, if you’re going to do a Quentin Tarantino film, you look at Quentin. If it’s a knockoff, you’re going to say, ‘Oh well, it would have worked if it was Quentin.’ There are certain people in the industry that you look to as those touchstones, and [Tyler] is the one for that [audience,] and the only one unfortunately.”

Masterminding a template

The path to success for Perry has been less a matter of artistic revolution and more a testament to his business acumen.

As a filmmaker, Perry created his brand by establishing what Jeffries and others consider a formula for comedy: placing slapstick, hyperbolized characters in problematic situations, which they tackle through family units.

The storylines are meant to reflect the dynamic of the African-American household, and were introduced with the debut of Perry’s most well-known and scrutinized character, Madea, in the 2005 film, Diary of a Mad Black Woman.

Following her arrival, the character spawned six incarnations, building a franchise under Perry’s reign worth over $400 million.

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article courtesy of TheGrio.com

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