According to a 8.25 Yahoo Movies piece by Gwynne Watkins, director-writer Tyler Perry had never heard of Gone Girl director David Fincher before signing to play a costarring role as Tanner Bolt, the attorney of Ben Affleck‘s suspected wife-killer Nick Dunne. Honestly — that’s what he says in the article.
Tyler Perry, Ben Affleck in David Fincher’s Gone Girl (20th Century Fox, 10.3).
“If I had known who David Fincher was and his body of work, or if I’d known the book was so popular, I would have said no…I probably would have walked away from it,” Tyler tells Watkins. “And my agent knew that! He didn’t tell me until after I signed on!”
On one hand you almost have to admire Perry’s nerve. That’s almost like admitting he’s never heard of James Cameron or Stanley Kubrick or David Lean. Does he live at the bottom of a mine shaft? Hey, Tyler…ever heard of Paul Thomas Anderson? How about Samuel Fuller or Ida Lupino? Could it be that Perry only pays attention to black directors…something like that? This might help some of us to understand a little more why Perry’s movies are so bad. He lives entirely in his own little cave.