Kellee Terrell

Tyler Perry discusses the budgets of his projects and how his audience helps him keep going “The budgets for my shows are really, really low, and the reason that they're so low is because being a Black show, being a Black writer, they do models for me. Even my movies, my budgets are really low. I see white boys walk in and they get four or five times as much as I, and make nowhere near. Being black, I had to go into these rooms and try to figure out, okay, how do I make this work for me? So I was like, okay, I own the studio. I own the lights. I own the sound. I own all this stuff. So here's what I'll do. I'll go in. I'll take that lower budget, and I'll make it work. And my audience is going to show up, and they're going to make it work, and they're going to make it a hit. And every few years, we're going to try to negotiate to get that number higher. But in that, I'm doing all the sacrificing. I'm making sure everybody else is paid and getting what they want. But my sacrifice comes on the end because it's part of my catalog. That's where my value is. I'm not making the money up front. It's in the long game. So if you go in and you're looking for the bag then great, you go buy your Bentley, your Rolls Royce, that's wonderful, you had it. But then what you've done is signed it all the way, they own you and they're never gonna give you an opportunity to be in that position again.”