Blitz Bazawule, co-director of Beyonce‘s Black is King visual album, is the Ghanaian artist set to direct a cinematic musical adaptation of The Color Purple, a film inspired by the popular Broadway production.
Bazawule will use his musical background to create a fresh portrayal of this well-known narrative. This ‘Color Purple’ musical film adaptation will be executive produced by its story creator, Alice Walker. Her daughter, Rebecca Walker, along with Kristie Macosko Krieger, Carla Gardini and Mara Jacobs, will also EP.
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The Color Purple is an aged Black tale that emerged in 1982 as a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Walker. She tells the transcendent story of Celie, a southern Black woman living with her family in early-1900s Georgia. Celie struggles to find her identity through trauma and generational curses.
Three years later, Walker’s popular novel was adapted into a film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, alongside Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover and a host of others. The 1985 blockbuster was produced by Spielberg, Quincy Jones, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. The Broadway musical adaptation of “The Color Purple” debuted in 2005, starring Tony Award winner LaChanze as Celie. The popular musical returned to Broadway in 2015 and starred Cynthia Erivo.
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The 2020 musical adaptation of Walker’s story is a full-circle moment, this time produced by an excited Winfrey, Spielberg, Jones and Scott Sanders.
“We were all blown away by Blitz’s unique vision as a director and look forward to seeing how he brings the next evolution of this beloved story to life,” Winfrey told Deadline.
Bazawule is a composer and musician with seven studio albums: Stereotype (2009), Native Sun (2011), Afropolitan Dreams (2014) and Diasporadical (2016), to name a few. Among his many accomplishments, he is also the founder of Africa Film Society and the director of The Burial Of Kojo, an award-winning film.