Speaking of Tyler Perry, a trailer for the star’s new TBS dramedy, For Better or Worse, has been released. The show stars Tasha Smith and Michael Jai White and is based on their characters, warring spouses Angela and Marcus, from the feature films Why Did I Get Married? and Why Did I Get Married Too?

Writer, actor, producer, director, all-around-Renaissance Man Tyler Perry has topped Forbes’ annual list of the highest paid men in entertainment, earning a whopping $130 million between May 2010 and May 2011.

His closest competition was producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who made $113 million over the past year, and lensman Steven Spielberg, who finished third with $107 million earned.

Tyler Perry — who nearly blew a gasket when he was mocked on a 2010 episode of The Boondocks — found himself on the receiving end of the South Park treatment in a parody that aired on the longrunning animated Comedy Central series on Wednesday.

Spike Lee will not be pleased…Tyler Perry is bringing another television series to TBS. On Tuesday, the cable network picked up 10 episodes of a new dramedy from the director-producer-actor called For Better or For Worse, a spinoff project from his popular Why Did I Get Married? film franchise.

The Dark Knight’s Michael Jai White and Tasha Smith, of Couples Retreat, have signed on to reprise their roles as television anchor Marcus and salon owner Angela on the new series, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The bickering couple were first introduced to audiences when they appeared in the Married flick, which hit theaters in 2007. If Better of Worse reaches a certain ratings threshold during its initial run, the network will order an additional 90 episodes.

“Tyler Perry’s series have been tremendously successful for TBS, helping establish the network as a prime destination for African-American viewers,” Michael Wright, Executive Vice President and Head of Programming for TBS, TNT and Turner Classic Movies said Monday. “Given such a remarkable track record, we’re excited for the opportunity to expand our relationship with Tyler Perry and Debmar-Mercury with the new series For Better or Worse.”

TBS is also home to Perry’s comedies Meet the Browns and House of Payne, the latter of which is entering its final season. The series, which like Perry’s other two will be syndicated by Debmar Mercury, will begin production at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta this summer, just as Perry wraps up Payne after a staggering 222 episodes. The lensman says he’s excited about his new endeavour.

“Even though it will be sad to say goodbye to House of Payne, I’m really looking forward to exploring new territory with For Better or Worse. Working on ‘House of Payne’ taught me a lot about what it takes to make a successful television series and I’m looking forward to applying that experience to ‘For Better or Worse.’”

House of Payne and Meet the Browns ranked among television’s top five primetime sitcoms with African-American adults 18-34 and 18-49 for the first quarter of 2011.

And in this corner….Two of the most successful Black filmmakers in Hollywood history are at one another’s throats again. It seems Tyler Perry never quite got over a 2009 interview in which legendary lensman Spike Lee quipped that Perry’s films “harken back to Amos n’ Andy.”

“Each artist should be allowed to pursue their artistic endeavors, but I still think there is a lot of stuff out today that is coonery and buffoonery,” Lee told 60 Minutes at the time. “I know it’s making a lot of money and breaking records, but we can do better. … I am a huge basketball fan, and when I watch the games on TNT, I see these two ads for these two shows (Tyler Perry’s ‘Meet the Browns’ and ‘House of Payne’), and I am scratching my head. We got a black president, and we going back to Mantan Moreland and Sleep ‘n’ Eat?”

After nearly two years of keeping his silence, Tyler unleashed the beast on Spike during a press conference for his latest comedy, Madea’s Big Happy Family, opening in theaters this weekend.

“I’m so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee,” Perry fumed. “Spike can go straight to hell! You can print that. I am sick of him talking about me, I am sick of him saying, ‘this is a coon, this is a buffoon.’ I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: ‘you vote by what you see,’ as if black people don’t know what they want to see.”

Oh, but he isn’t done yet. Tyler followed up with: “I am sick of him – he talked about Whoopi, he talked about Oprah, he talked about me, he talked about Clint Eastwood. Spike needs to shut the hell up!”

Perry furthered lit into Spike in an email to EUR’s Lee Bailey. The For Colored Girls director simply can’t understand why he finds his biggest critics among other African-Americans.

“I’ve never seen Jewish people attack Seinfeld and say ‘this is a stereotype,’ I’ve never seen Italian people attack ‘The Sopranos,’ I’ve never seen Jewish people complaining about ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ or Dustin Hoffman in ‘Tootsie.’ I never saw it. It’s always black people, and this is something that I cannot undo,” he wrote.

“Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois went through the exact same thing; Langston Hughes said that Zora Neale Hurston, the woman who wrote ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’ was a new version of the ‘darkie’ because she spoke in a southern dialect and a Southern tone. And I’m sick of it from us; we don’t have to worry about anybody else trying to destroy us and take shots because we do it to ourselves.”

We were with Tyler until he compared his Madea parodies to the plight of Zora Neale Hurston. Perry, sitcho ass down!

Check out this new trailer for Madea’s Big Happy Family, the latest film from writer/producer/director/Man in a Dress Tyler Perry.

We’ve got your first look at the return of Everyone’s Favorite Pistol-Totin’ Granny in this trailer for Tyler Perry’s new comedy, Madea’s Big Happy Family.

A follow-up to 2008′s Madea Goes to Jail, the film will follow Madea as she forges a family union when her niece, Shirley, receives distressing news about her health. Shirley’s desperate to gather her three adult children around her and share the news as a family. But Tammy, Kimberly and Byron are too distracted by their own lives to care.

Bow Wow, Loretta Devine, Lauren London, and Maury Povich make up the ensemble cast.

Madea’s Big Happy Family hits theaters April 22, just in time for Easter.

Well — this is about as close as Tyler’s going to get to the Oscars! The actor/director/philanthropist Tyler Perry is rolling out the cinematic red carpet for yet another African-American horror story — this one titled Madea’s Big Happy Family.

In a new theatrical poster promoting the film, Mr. Perry — as he prefers to be called — appears in full costume as his famed alter ego, pistol-packin’ grandma Madea, parodying the critically-acclaimed psychological thriller Black Swan. For those not in-the-know, the movie, which is up for a host of prizes at next month’s 2011 Academy Awards, is expected to land actress Natalie Portman her first Oscar.

Madea, Perry, and their redundant tales of deadbeat dads, stereotypical bossy Black women, and AIDS-infected hookers return to theaters April 22.

Actor Tyler Perry got into the Christmas spirit by offering to purchase a new home for an 88-year-old Georgia grandmother who lost her home in a fire, officials said Sunday.

The filmmaker has promised to rebuild Rosa Lee Ransby’s home after she and her four-year-old great-granddaughter escaped a blaze that destroyed their Coweta County dwelling last Tuesday, WSBTV reports. Mrs. Rosa Lee had lived in the home for more than 40 years. After spying television coverage of the fire, Perry visited Mrs. Ransby’s neighborhood and pledged to rent her a house for a year, pay for utilities and furniture, and build a new home on her property. The house Perry rented for Ransby is only a few doors down from her home that burned.

The generosity of the multimillionaire behind TV hits like House of Payne and Meet the Browns surprised the family and firefighters alike.

“It’s just good, you know,” Ransby said. “I didn’t think I had no friends, but I found out I got some.”

“It’s made my Christmas. I’ve been doing this a long time, seen a lot of bad things come and go but this is special,” Coweta Fire Chief Todd Moore said.

Perry has been in the Christmas spirit all week. In a letter he published on his website Thursday, the famous do-gooder — who sent a group of Philadelphia kids banned from a country club swimming pool to Disney World –wrote about taking orphans shopping at Target and encouraged his fans to be thankful for what they have.

“They [the orphans] came to the checkout with their red Target baskets looking like overloaded Santa sleighs. Boy that did my heart good!…It made me remember to be thankful for the little things. I hope it does the same for you,” Perry wrote. “There were many times I could have done the wrong thing–gotten easy money. But because I chose to do the right thing, God honored that and blessed me.”

Construction on the new home will begin early next year.

The first theatrical trailer for For Colored Girls…., the latest directorial effort from writer/producer/director Tyler Perry, debuted online early Wednesday.

The upcoming film is based on a 1975 play which features a series of 20 poems telling stories of love, abandonment, domestic abuse, and other issues faced by women of color.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf has a star-studded cast ensemble which consists of Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Kimberly Elise, Kerry Washington, Loretta Devine, and Anika Noni Rose.

The film is set for release in the US on Nov. 5.