‘The Color Purple’ Artisans Explain How a Giant, 22-Foot Gramophone Helped Transport Audiences Into Celie’s Imagination

Fantasia Barrino is sharing how she really felt about playing the lead role of Celie in The Color Purple on Broadway.

The movie The Color Purple is currently in theaters and winning over audiences around the country!

Angelique Jackson SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “The Color Purple,” now playing in theaters. As “The Color Purple” director Blitz Bazawule and his star-studded cast made their press rounds ahead of the musical movie’s Christmas Day release, they paid a special trip to visit “The View” and Whoopi Goldberg, who starred in the 1985 movie adaptation of Alice Walker’s classic novel. It’d been nearly 40 years since Goldberg played Celie, an abused and uneducated Southern Black woman whose journey to liberation is at the center of Walker’s tale. Bazawule and stars Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks and Taraji P.

Oprah Winfrey was part of the original 1985 film cast of The Color Purple, but decided not to make a cameo in the 2023 version in theaters now. If you don’t know, Oprah portrayed the role of Sofia in 1985 and was Oscar nominated for her role. She acted as a producer this go around.

Usher and H.E.R. stripped down to just their underwear for the new music video set to their song “Risk It All“!

Steven J. Horowitz Senior Music Writer Nestled amid a tale of hardship and torment, “Keep It Movin'” is a bright spot in the newly released adaptation of “The Color Purple.” Just as sisters Nettie and Celie (Halle Bailey and Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) are about to be torn from one another, they find a brief moment of respite and optimism as they sing to one another on the beach. “Nothing’s gonna take you down, oh / Just let it go / Life can never break your soul,” sings Nettie, instilling a feeling of hope that flickers and wanes in Celie as the film endures.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “The Color Purple” added $7.1 million on Tuesday, bringing its domestic box office tally to an impressive $25 million after two days of release. The Warner Bros. film, an adaptation of the book-turned-beloved-movie-turned-hit-Broadway-musical, opened in theaters on Monday.

The movie musical The Color Purple opened in theaters on Christmas Day and the film earned the number one spot at the box office, blowing away expectations.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “The Color Purple,” a vibrant adaptation of the book-turned-beloved-movie-turned-hit-Broadway-musical, dominated at the box office on Christmas Day. The film has outperformed expectations with $18 million from 3,152 North American theaters. It’s the largest Christmas Day opening for a film since 2009, and the second-biggest Christmas Day opening of all time.

Oprah Winfrey, was even the Queen of Talk.And the very same year, Stephen Bray — executive music producer of the new “Color Purple” movie musical that opens on Christmas Day — scored his first hits with the future Queen of Pop, Madonna, as co-writer of both “Into the Groove” and “Angel.”But Bray and Madonna shared a different kind of rhythmic history even before that — when they were both living in Ann Arbor, Michigan.“I used to play percussion in some of the dance classes that she was in,” Bray told The Post. “And then she moved to New York and was playing drums for [the band] Breakfast Club in ’79.

The movie musical The Color Purple is now in theaters and you’ll be running to listen to “I’m Here” over and over after you see the film!

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Director Blitz Bazawule had a clear vision of what he wanted Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson) to represent in “The Color Purple.” She was a bold, sexy, beautiful and extraordinary woman, but she was also loving and nurturing to Celie (Fantasia Barrino) and Sophia (Danielle Brooks). “Those were her sisters and there was a bond there,” Tym Wallace, the film’s makeup and hair department artist explains.

The Color Purple is back on the big screen, this time as a movie musical, nearly 40 years after the first movie was released.

Angelique Jackson Turning 30 is always a memorable moment, but “The Color Purple” actor Phylicia Pearl Mpasi rang in her third decade with a birthday serenade from Oprah Winfrey. Coincidentally, Mpasi’s birthday (November 16) fell on another special occasion: the first screening of the musical reimagining of “The Color Purple.” The atmosphere was charged with anticipation since this was the debut of the film before critics and press, but the mood backstage was particularly jovial since it was the first time the cast — Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Choreographer Fatima Robinson fused hip-hop, dance, African history, tap, jazz and even Jamaican moves as she crafted the musical numbers in “The Color Purple,” but there was one person in particular whose energy she wanted to capture: Beyoncé. Specifically, the energy of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance.” Director Blitz Bazawule blends Alice Walker’s text and the Broadway musical to reimagine the classic as a vibrant movie musical. “American Idol’s” Fantasia Barrino plays Celie, a woman who slowly finds her voice with Shug Avery’s (Taraji P.

The Color Purple often succeeds as a thoughtful fusion of two other adaptations of Alice Walker’s landmark novel that still confidently hums its own tune.In shakier moments, though, confidence gives way to nostalgia, when the film hammers home its reinterpretations of quotable scenes and dialogue from the Quincy Jones-produced, Steven Spielberg-directed 1985 adaptation with an insistence that borders on flashing “Hey, remember this?” in bold type onscreen.Creating and saying something new with such proven material, while also purposely coaxing audience sentiment for a beloved original, surely posed a formidable challenge for Bazawule and company. And having Jones, Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey — the big guns and big breakout from the 1985 film — onboard as producers must have eased and complicated the gig in unfathomable ways.Oprah and Jones also had a hand in the original Broadway musical adaptation, which has spun off its own lore and legacy, and adds another meta layer of pop-lit gloss to what this film aims to freshly reinterpret.The stage musical — with a book by Marsha Norman, and lyrics and music by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray — has amassed its own roster of breakout stars, including American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino, who made her 2007 Broadway debut stepping into the lead role of Celie, and Orange Is the New Black‘s Danielle Brooks, Tony-nominated for playing Sofia opposite Cynthia Erivo in the 2015 Broadway revival.Barrino and Brooks reprise their respective roles here with a lived-in grace and fortitude that does freshly illuminate Walker’s moving narrative, the lifeblood that courses through every iteration.

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Fantasia Barrino, “The Little Mermaid” star Halle Berry and five-time Grammy winner H.E.R. to bring the belting in “The Color Purple,” the new movie musical adaption of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that opens in theaters on Christmas Day.But Oscar and Emmy-nominated actress Taraji P. Henson also flexes some surprise vocal chops as blues singer Shug Avery.And Executive Music Producer Stephen Bray already envisioned the former “Empire” diva in the role when she came to see the “Color Purple” musical on Broadway in 2005.“We were sitting together, and at intermission I said, ‘You know, you’d make a great Shug Avery,’ ” Bray — who co-wrote the songs for both 2005’s original stage production and its 2015 revival — told The Post.

Taraji P. Henson is responding to the rumors that she’s in a feud with Oprah Winfrey, the producer of her new movie The Color Purple.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the shortlists in 10 categories for the upcoming 96th Oscars ceremony. Overall, Greta Gerwig’s meta-comedy “Barbie” had the most mentions with five including sound, original song for its three submissions from Billie Eilish (“What I Was Made For?”), Dua Lipa (“Dance the Night”) and Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt (“I’m Just Ken”), and original score, from the latter duo. The big miss for “Barbie” was in makeup and hairstyling, which was the category that yielded the most surprises.