The pendulum has swung all the way back. Oprah Winfrey, who earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance in 1985's The Color Purple, has unveiled the cast of the upcoming film based on the Tony-winning Broadway musical, which itself was based on Alice Walker's seminal novel.
Both the movie and the musical, which debuted in 2005, were based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel. “This ain’t your mama’s Color Purple,” Winfrey remarked in a Vanity Fair spread revealing cast details. The new film will star Fantasia Taylor, Colman Domingo, Danielle Brooks, Halle Bailey, Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., and Taraji P. Henson, and begins shooting in Georgia next month.
The new movie will be directed by Blitz Bazawule and written by Marcus Gardley. Winfrey is producing alongside Scott Sanders, who also produced the Broadway show. She said that the original film changed her life, and hoped that the new one does the same for its cast:
“It has been a vehicle for magic and purpose in my life. I don’t know anybody who’s ever been associated with it whose life didn’t get enhanced. Everything comes from the original words of Alice Walker, which were grounded in love, really. Love of this community. Love of these people. Love of those characters. And that just gets passed on and passed on and passed on. I can’t wait to see this next evolvement, which is not attached to having done it the way we’ve always done it.”
The Color Purple deals focuses on three young Black women and the hardships that they collectively experience in the early twentieth century American South. Whoopi Goldberg delivered an Oscar-nominated central performance as Celie Harris in Spielberg’s original film, and the musical adaptation will incorporate magic realism into its story, which Sanders said will give the audiences “a chance to go inside of Celie’s imagination.”
Taylor will play Goldberg's role in the new movie, with Peacemaker star Brooks taking over the role of Sofia, originally played by Winfrey. The Little Mermaid star Bailey plays Nettie, H.E.R. stars as Squeak, Henson plays Shug Avery, Hawkins will appear as Harpo and Domingo as Mister. Winfrey told Vanity Fair that she personally called up Brooks to tell her that she’d gotten the part. She said:
"You know, I didn’t think it was going to be emotional for me, but it ended up being emotional for me too! She so wanted it. I was listening to her when we had Blitz’s assistant on, who was apologizing, saying, 'So sorry that you have to do yet another audition, but something was wrong with the previous tape.' And then she goes, 'I would audition as many times as I needed to, because this means that much to me.' And then I popped up: 'Sofia, SO-FEEE-AAHHH!'”
Joining Sanders and Winfrey as producers on the new film are Spielberg and Quincy Jones, who composed the score for the original film. The new Color Purple marks Spielberg’s return to the musical genre, after last year’s critically acclaimed but commercially disappointing West Side Story.
Warner Bros. has slated the new Color Purple for a December 20, 2023 theatrical release. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates on the project!