Kim Kardashian Belongs on Reality TV, Not Movies, Says Film Actress
Kim Kardashian may have received rave reviews from some of her fellow "Temptation" castmates, but one actress is sounding off on film executive Tyler Perry's decision to use the reality television star in his movie.
Essence Atkins, the 41-year-old actress who recently appeared in the film "A Haunted House" criticized Perry's choice to cast Kardashian in his movie.
"I found it interesting that Tyler did that with Temptation, hiring Kim Kardashian because she has 16 million Twitter followers, which would seem like a brilliant marketing plan," Atkins told Sister 2 Sister magazine recently. "He has one of the biggest Twitter personalities out there in his movies, and he had one of the worst box office weekends."
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Perry's "Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor" reportedly earned $22.3 million during its debut weekend, according to Sister 2 Sister. While the film did not outsell Perry's "Why Did I Get Married Too," E! reports that it did perform better than the actor, director, writer and producer's other movies that did not feature his popular character Madea.
While Atkins said the film was not a loss for Perry, she said she felt casting a reality television star based on popularity instead of talent was a bad move.
"It's not a failure, but it did worse than his movies usually do just based on him," Atkins told Sister 2 Sister. "I thought that was an interesting finding. Your experiment didn't work."
Last December, Perry explained why he decided to use Kardashian in his film.
"I believe that my films speak from the inside out," Perry said in a statement on his website last December. "Why wouldn't Kim Kardashian be invited into a film about faith, forgiveness and the healing power of God? What is wrong with that?"
However, Atkins explained why she felt there was something wrong with Perry's decision.
"People want to see good stories. It's not necessarily that they want to see Kim Kardashian in a movie. They want to see her in a bikini," Atkins told Sister 2 Sister. "They want to see her with Kanye [West]. They want to see her on her show talking about her life with her sisters, but that doesn't mean that they want to see her in a movie."
