Oprah screens first The Color Purple trailer at CinemaCon
The self-procalimed "not your mama's Color Purple" hits theaters Christmas Day
Aux News The Color Purple
Warner Bros. kicked off their CinemaCon presentation by giving everyone a car. Well, sort of; they invited Oprah Winfrey to present the first trailer for the upcoming musical adaptation of The Color Purple. Based on the Alice Walker novel as well as the Broadway musical, the latest Winfrey-produced Color Purple leans into those extravagant theatrics. As the trailer says, “This ain’t your mama’s Color Purple.” Still, as Winfrey later qualified, “Your mama’s still gonna love it.”
The trailer is very much an adaptation of a Broadway musical, filled with bombast and brass. Trading Spielberg’s melodrama for lavish setpieces, the movie leans into the magical realism of the story with visual flare, jumping from time periods and characters, from swamps to nightclubs with Baz Luhrman-like energy. It really does not look anything like the original.
“It holds great personal meaning to me,” said Winfrey. “When I was cast in the film, it was my first acting role, and now we’re doing a brand new version of The Color Purple, that could only happen with the perfect director, who envisioned the film like the Broadway musical, bringing in magical realism and family wholesomeness.”
Winfrey turned the mic over to the director, Blitz Bazawule.
“I started this journey with the utmost respect and love for you and Alice Walker, whose book gave us this amazing story,” Bazawule said. “The Color Purple as a story is known and treasured all over the world because it’s about finding your voice, your family, and breaking through obstacles.”
After the trailer, Winfrey welcomed the film’s three leads Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino. Henson said that she did monologues of the show in theater school but turned down an audition for the show.
“I remember being approached when it was on Broadway about auditioning for Suge, and I totally punked out,” said Henson. “When it came around again, I figured, ‘one and done’ that’s something that my voice can handle.” Of course, Brooks played Sophia on Broadway for a year, so this was probably a breeze for her.
The Color Purple hit theaters on Christmas Day.
8 Comments
“The Color Purple hit theaters on Christmas Day.”Close. The Color Purple hit theaters December 18, 1985.
Very excited to see how this turns out. Overall as a musical it’s fine, but its real strength is the opportunities it gives performers to shine. There’s a reason that both times it’s been on Broadway the actor playing Celie has won the Tony: the 11 o’clock number “I’m Here” is a barnburner up there with the best and Fantasia has nailed it in the past. JHud might not be the only Oscar winning American Idol alumn come next year!
“When I was cast in the film, it was my first acting role, and now we’re doing a brand new version of The Color Purple, that could only happen with the perfect director, who envisioned the film like the Broadway musical, bringing in magical realism and family wholesomeness.” – That Lady Who Gives Out Cars
Domestic violence, rape, incest, & alcoholism. Very wholesome, kid-centric themes. What’s next? The Bluest Eye featuring Avenue Q style puppets? LOL!
Maybe she meant it could be viewed as a legacy? IDK.
This quote struck me as well. “Family wholesomeness” doesn’t exactly leap off the page in the novel, and it’s not a key component of the film or the stage musical. There’s a lot of heavy stuff in there. I think a movie musical for The Color Purple could work, but I also think it has a lot stacked against it. Will it find an audience? I don’t know. Movie musicals in general are a hard sell. Movie musicals with such heavy themes are even harder. Plus they’re going to release it on Christmas, but this isn’t exactly holiday fare. The revival from 2015 was well reviewed and it catapulted Cynthia Erivo into stardom. I wish she would have gotten a crack at the role of Celie in the movie. The revival was praised for its spare staging and stripping down of the original, more bombastic musical. Many critics said it worked better that way. If the movie musical leans into “extravagant theatrics,” I’m concerned it will lose some of intimacy made the revival so successful and instead turn into something more like Spielberg’s 1985 movie, which was at its weakest when it was trying to be expansive and grandiose.
My guess is that Erivo passed on this film in order to make Wicked. Maybe she didn’t want her EGOT to be for a single role, or maybe she wanted to try something new, but I have a hard time believing she wasn’t offered the part.
“Winfrey-produced”Hard pass.
The Color Purple hit theaters on Christmas Day.Well, was it good?
Pretty weird how a musical version of Harry Potter would be condemned by every Woke shithead from here to Timbuktu, but those same people won’t say a word about Alice Walker’s virulent anti-semitism.