Stars line up for Tyler Perry's next Madea film

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SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Eugene Levy, Doris Roberts, Tom Arnold, John Amos and Marla Gibbs are to star in "Madea's Witness Production," the U.S. film's producers said.

Denise Richards and Romeo have also signed up for roles in the next installment of Tyler Perry's popular Madea franchise, Lionsgate said Monday.

The movie, now in production, is the prolific filmmaker's 14th movie with Lionsgate in seven years.

The announcement was made by Perry and Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger, co-presidents of Lionsgate's Motion Picture Group.

In the film, Levy plays George, "a high-level chief financial officer at the center of a Ponzi scheme in New York City who is enrolled in the witness protection program along with his family in the one place that absolutely no one will think to look for them: Madea's house down South," a synopsis said.

Perry wrote the script and is directing and producing the film. He also will reprise three of his most popular roles -- tough-talking grandma Madea, Madea's indelicate cousin Joe and plain-spoken attorney Brian.

"This is the ultimate fish-out-of-water story, and I believe the funniest Madea story yet," Mike Paseornek, Lionsgate's president of Motion Picture Development and Production, said in a statement. "We loved the witness protection concept from the second we heard it, but when Tyler cast comedy icon Eugene Levy and put him under the same roof with Madea and Uncle Joe, he took this movie to a whole new level."