Rejoice—Madea is coming back! Tyler Perry is bringing back the character for A Media Homecoming.
The Netflix film will see Perry write, direct, and star in it. Perry retired Mabel “Madea” Simmons in 2020 with Madea’s Farewell Tour. Her final appearance was in 2019’s A Madea Family Funeral.
“I was done with Madea, completely done with it,” Perry told Variety. But as I’ve been looking at the state of the world — and I finished a tour in January, just before the pandemic started to break in the country — and the amount of joy and laughter that it brought to so many people, that’s what I think is missing. We need that laughter and that joy.”
The film, which plans to debut in 2022, will be shot at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.
Perry announced the news on social media in Madea’s voice saying, “This is Madea saying I’m coming back, and I’m on Netflix and I can’t wait to tell you. I was done,” Perry continues, as Madea interrupts. “But I wasn’t.”
Madea debuted in 1999 during Perry’s play I Can Do Bad All by Myself, where the actor has to step into the actor who was supposed to play Madea couldn’t make it. Her big-screen debut came in 2005’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Over eleven films, the Madea franchise grossed more than $1 billion at the box office.
