Oprah Winfrey has teamed up with some of Hollywood’s best and brightest to revisit the classic story that helped put her on the map.
The host, actress, and mogul has teamed up once again with Steven Spielberg to reimagine The Color Purple as a movie musical, based upon the Tony award-winning musical of the same name. Directed by Blitz Bazawule (Black is King), the film stars Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., Halle Bailey, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and Fantasia Barrino as lead character Celie in her major motion picture debut.
Winfrey revealed the trailer to the cast of the film, including H.E.R., Henson, Brooks, and Barrino while the ladies gathered around in robes awaiting their big photoshoot with ESSENCE, as she teased on TikTok on May 22, 2023.
“The world is about to see it, so I want you to see it first,” the executive producer told the stars.
Centering on the story of Celie, a Black woman living in the rural south during the early 20th century who is abused by her father, eventually her husband, and devalued by her community at large, The Color Purple is a story of perseverance of the spirit and self-actualization through the most harrowing of life circumstances.
When asked during a live virtual event about the necessity of reviving the classic tale told originally through Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, popularized through Spielberg’s 1985 film, and revisited on Broadway in musical form in 2005 and again in 2015, Winfrey had this to say, according to Variety:
“As long there is a need for self-discovery, self-empowerment, as long as there is a need for victory in someone’s life, as long as there is a need for people to know what it feels like to be loved up and to be made full and hold to somebody else’s love, there will be a need for The Color Purple.”
Take a look at the full trailer below:
The Color Purple opens on Christmas Day 2023 in theaters everywhere.