Blitz Bazawule to Direct ‘The Color Purple’ Adaptation For The Big Screen

The Color Purple is a book, turned film, turned musical stage production, and now turned film all over again, as Warner Bros has found its director for most recent adaptation.

The studio has hired up and coming filmmaker Blitz Bazawule to helm the big screen version of the Tony Award winning musical, Deadline Hollywood reports.

The Ghana-born director is certainly making a name for himself in the industry having just come off directing Beyonce’s latest visual album film Black is King and Netflix’s The Burial Of Kojo. It was the later film that secured Bazawule the job as Purple’s producers Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Scott Sanders and Quincy Jones were all amazed by the up and comer’s unique style that can be realized for the adpatation.

Beyond directing, Bazawule is an incredibly talented and accomplished composer having released four studio albums. This unique combination of musicianship and filmmaking techniques could be the perfect mixture to make The Color Purple stand out not just in the increasingly crowded film musical market but also to stand out from its predecessors of which it is based off of.

The Color Purple was initially published as a novel in 1982 by Alice Walker and was considered a landmark book in regards to black literature reaching beyond its initial target audience. Spielberg adapted the novel into a major motion picture in 1985 that stared Whoopi Goldberg, Winfrey, Danny Glover and Margaret Avery to name a few. Although the film received 11 Academy Award nominations, it went home empty handed but it still managed to gross $142 million worldwide on a modest $15 million budget.

The latest adaptation, however, will follow the lines of the Broadway musical. It premiered in 2005 and also earned 11 Tony nominations, but unlike the film, was able to win one for Best Actress. In 2015, a much acclaimed revival netted four more Tony nods and two wins for Best Revival and Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo.

It’ll be very interesting to see how Bazawule adapts this timeless story and musical into a big screen event but I commend WB for going with an up and comer of his type to give this a unique and potentially moving experience. We don’t have any casting announcements nor is there a scheduled release date or even principal photography. But with a director on board, we can only hope that things will start moving for The Color Purple.