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The latest movie from writer-director Tyler Perry, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, may strike you as being another comedy featuring Perry's big bad old lady Madea. However, Madea has only a small role as comic relief in this melodrama/morality play. The credits tell us that the movie is based on Perry's 2000 play of the same name, but after reading summaries of the play, the two seem to have little in common apart from the title and a moral awakening on the part of the lead characters.

April (Taraji P. Henson) is a mess -- a nightclub singer who rarely sees the light of day, an alcoholic, a woman heavily involved with a married man (Brian White) who pays all her bills. Suddenly, she has three children foisted upon her -- caught trying to break into Madea's house, they confess that the grandmother who has been raising them has gone missing. Madea sends them to Aunt April, who is unwilling to take them but can't find another option. In the meantime, the local church sends April a handyman to help fix her crumbling old house in return for room and board, the optimistic and caring Sandino (Adam Rodriguez). How will April deal with these disruptive people in her life?

Phew! For a second there, I thought there wasn't going to be any footage of Madea in this new trailer for Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns. But if you're at all familiar with Perry's play Meet the Browns, you know she's not actually featured in the story. So, why was I expecting her to show up in the trailer? Well, IMDb mentions that she's in the movie, which is reportedly very different than the play it's based on. Plus, it's been too long since fans have seen Madea. She's like Tyler Perry's Jay & Silent Bob. Even though she shouldn't be continually milked as a cash cow for Perry's career, it's not smart box-office-wise to let her go. Anyway, that shot of Madea at the head of a police chase may be a lead-in for Perry's eventual film version of Madea Goes to Jail, which he has announced is in the works.

In case you couldn't tell from the trailer, which seems to give every bit away, the plot of Meet the Browns follows the story of Brenda (Angela Bassett), a single mom living in Chicago with serious financial woes, who finds out her father, who she's never met, has just died. She heads to Georgia with her kids and meets her father's other family, The Browns, many of whom, such as Cora Brown (Tamela J. Mann), have starred in previous Perry movies. As we can definitely tell from the trailer, Brenda inherits a house, finds a man (Rick Fox), deals with her son's venture into dope dealing and has a grand time settling in with her new Southern family. Meet the Browns arrives in theaters March 21.

The latest film from Tyler Perry, Daddy's Little Girls, is missing two things: Perry's Madea character and a significant opening weekend gross. Could it be coincidence? Or was it simply the result of an overly competitive weekend? In the six days since its Valentine's Day bow, Daddy's Little Girls has earned about $20 million, which is normally a good debut for a February. But this past weekend drew record attendances due to five major new releases, including a superhero action film, a fantastic family pic, a star-billed romantic comedy and a grown-up thriller. It isn't that surprising that a few of those, plus the very popular Norbit, would place higher than a lower-budget, "urban" romantic comedy on the box office chart.

Still, Perry's first picture, Madea's Family Reunion, opened in the same month last year to $30 million. And two years ago, also in the same month, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which Perry wrote but did not direct, opened to $21 million. In the end those films grossed more than double their opening totals. But neither of them went up against any significant challengers at the multiplexes. With another slew of new films opening Friday, it is possible that Daddy's Little Girls will get lost in the mix, and it isn't likely that it will manage to finish with as noticeable a run as its predecessors.

Few in Hollywood like to defend low numbers with such logical explanations, so it is easy to imagine Lionsgate is right now pressuring Perry into adding the Madea character to his next film, Why Did I Get Married?, even though the source play did not feature the character. I think that Madea could very well be Perry's own Jay and Silent Bob.

I don't really get the whole Madea thing, and therefore I haven't been able to appreciate the films of Tyler Perry. But, that is understandable, and perfectly fine with me. Perry's films aren't made for me. They aren't made for any white critics, really. Enough people like Perry and his cross-dressed performance as Madea to have made his previous two films, Diary of a Mad Black Woman (directed by Darren Grant) and Madea's Family Reunion, huge successes at the box office. Enough people like him to give him an award for best actor (albeit from Business Week). And, finally, enough people like Perry to keep him employed by Lionsgate Films.

Lionsgate distributed both of Perry's Madea features and it will also release the writer-director's latest, Daddy's Little Girls, on Valentine's Day, 2007. Although neither Perry nor his Madea character appear in the new film, Lionsgate isn't waiting to see if audiences mind. The studio has announced that it will hold on to Perry for two more films, both of which go into production next year. The first is called Why Did I Get Married and deals with the pros and cons of marriage. Based on one of Perry's stage plays (like the Madea films), it starts shooting in January. The second, A Jazz Man's Blues, tells the story about a jazz singer on his way toward stardom who has to return to his rural hometown to save a woman he had an affair with.