Netflix's A Madea Homecoming contains a surprising Mrs. Brown's Boys crossover, but how and why did it happen? First released on February 25th, 2022, A Madea Homecoming follows Tyler Perry's irrepressible Madea as she prepares to welcome her family to celebrate her great-grandson’s graduation from college before some hidden secrets threaten to destroy their reunion. A Madea Homecoming is the 12th movie in the celebrated Madea cinematic universe, with the film's premise adapted from Perry's stage production Madea's Farewell Play.
Like A Madea Homecoming, Irish TV sitcom Mrs. Brown's Boys also hails from theatrical roots, with series creator and lead Brendan O'Carroll running a seven-year show at the Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, under the same name. Mrs. Brown's Boys follows the titular Agnes Brown, a loud-mouthed Irish matriarch whose favorite pastime is meddling in the lives of her six children. The long-running series presents as a mixture of scripted and blooper content, with the actor's corpsing, plus set, camera, and prop faults not edited out of the episodes while filmed in front of a live studio audience.
A Madea Homecoming's Mrs. Brown's Boys crossover is an unexpected yet natural merging of two characters that feel spiritually very close to one another. Agnes Brown is introduced in Tyler Perry's A Madea Homecoming as the "grand-aunt" of Tim's (Brandon Black) friend Davi (Isha Blaaker), with both Agnes and Davi attending Madea's reunion. This crossover between Madea and Agnes' characters was reportedly five years in the making, with Perry first reaching out to O'Carroll in 2016 after being impressed with the fanbase the Irish comedian had built for Mrs. Brown's Boys.
Per Reuters, Perry describes the merging of Madea and Agnes Brown as "a match made in heaven or in hell, depending on who you ask." The two characters certainly share an abundance of similarities, from being played by male actors to acting as the headstrong matriarchs of their respective fictional families, with Perry going on to describe the pair as "sisters from two different worlds." The duo even shares similar roots, being adapted from the stage to film and TV, with Madea creator Tyler Perry feeling compelled to make a crossover project between the two characters work with O'Carroll after their initial phone calls in 2016.
While Madea and Agnes Brown's familial ties are tenuous at best, their character's respective stories throughout A Madea Homecoming highlight why both Perry and O'Carroll fought so hard to bring their characters together for the Netflix movie. Madea and Agnes share a tender moment towards the end of A Madea Homecoming in which both women recount the hopes and dreams they retain for their respective children, underpinning A Madea Homecoming's central idea of severing the proverbial apron strings for the good of the family. In a wider context, this also serves to display the longer-running themes in Perry's Madea cinematic universe franchise and Mrs. Brown's Boys that while these two headstrong characters are far from perfect, they want what is best for their children. The merging of Agnes Brown and Madea in A Madea Homecoming is the crossover few audiences expected, but one that is nevertheless a perfect fit over five years in the making.