Big Momma's House
Martin Lawrence as an FBI agent who goes undercover as a gun-toting Southern grandmother, prosthetics and fat suit and all. Critics groaned, but the one-joke premise turned into a $170-million summer smash and launched a franchise.
Big Momma's House opened June 2, 2000, directed by Raja Gosnell: Martin Lawrence plays FBI agent Malcolm Turner, who disguises himself in full prosthetic makeup and a fat suit as "Big Momma," a Southern grandmother, to stake out her house and protect a woman (Nia Long) connected to an escaped convict. The supporting cast included Paul Giamatti and Terrence Howard.
It landed squarely in the fat-suit comedy wave running through Hollywood at the time, and critics dismissed it as a one-joke movie — but audiences loved it, handing it an A CinemaScore and turning a $30 million production into a $174 million worldwide hit. That success made Big Momma one of Lawrence's signature characters and spawned two sequels, in 2006 and 2011, both of which critics panned as the premise wore thin.
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