When Tyler Perry announced the arrival of his 2019 film, A Madea Family Funeral, he shocked fans when he explained he would be retiring the iconic character. He explained that as he’d gotten older, he wanted to do something different and felt the character had “run out of things to say.” Yet, he didn’t want the finality of killing her off.
However, after revealing Madea stepping out of retirement and a slew of social media posts that many wrote off as Perry trolling from earlier this month, it appears Madea is officially back.
On Wednesday (Jan. 26), Netflix released the trailer for A Madea Homecoming, which is set to premiere Friday, Feb. 25. Reuniting the usual suspects—Tamela and David Mann as “Cora” and “Mr. Brown,” plus Cassi Davis-Patton as “Aunt Bam”—along with new arrivals to the franchise including Gabrielle Dennis, Brendan O’Carroll, Brandon Black, and more, the film revolves around family drama that ensues as Madea’s great-grandson graduates from college. This latest Tyler Perry Studios production marks Perry’s first Netflix original.
Upon the trailer’s release, the entertainment mogul took to Instagram, writing, “When I tell you I want you to laugh so hard that you can’t stop! I MEAN IT! We’ve been going through too much in this world! All I want this movie to do is just make you laugh out loud for real!” When deciding to bring Madea back, Perry shared with Entertainment Weekly, “I was looking at the state of the world and how polarized it is… nobody’s laughing. Nobody’s getting the chance to belly-laugh anymore. And I’m like, ‘What tool do I have in my arsenal that can bring that kind of laughter?'”
Madea first debuted onstage in Perry’s 1999 play, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, and onscreen in his 2005 feature film, Diary of a Mad Black Woman.