Filed under: News
With just a few weeks left before its theatrical opening, Tyler Perry has written to his fans about their concerns for his latest film, 'For Colored Girls.'
"There has been a lot of Internet chatter about me doing this film. I've heard everything from, 'I'm glad he's doing it!' to 'How dare he touch this!' Believe me, I know that this is sensitive material and I handled it that way. If you don't believe me see for yourself on November 5th."
Everyone from the press, his fans, and supporters of Ntozake Shange's play, which the film is based is on, are wondering if Perry can pull off the impossible.
"If you know anything about the book or play, 'For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf,' which is what my film is based on, then you know that it is one of the most powerful literary works of this century. But, if you know it, you are also thinking like I was, 'How can I make this into a movie?,'"stated the New Orleans native.
Perry, who made his fortune through his own plays, which featured his alter-ego Madea Simmons, is branching into new territory by working on a well-established material known to many in the theater community and considered as the holy grail in Black theater.
"After reading the play a thousand times and listening to these poems a million times, it hit me," he continued. "There was only one way to approach it. So what I did was, I put these characters in the situations around the poems, so that they could speak the dialogue of the book without it sounding like a poem. And I have to tell you, I wasn't sure that it could be done. But, after listening to Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton, Kerry Washington, Macy Gray, Kimberly Elise, Tessa Thompson, Whoopi Goldberg, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose and Janet Jackson say these words it was awesomely seemless."
To read the rest of his message, click here.