The official trailer for The Color Purple is here.
The film, which is based on the 1982 novel by Alice Walker and the Tony Award-winning musical of the same name, stars Halle Bailey, Colman Domingo, Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson and more.
In the trailer, Barrino sings the musical’s song “I’m Here” as clips from the movie flash across the screen.
The story, set in rural Georgia in the early 1900s, follows sisters Celie and Nettie, who were separated as girls but correspond in a series of letters spanning 20 years, according to a synopsis of the novel.
Bailey plays the younger Nettie while Ciara plays the older version of Nettie. Barrino stars as an older Celie, and Phylicia Pearl Mpasi plays the younger Celie.
In the 1985 Steven Spielberg film adaptation of the book, Whoopi Goldberg played Celie. The role earned her an Oscar nomination for best actress. Actress Margaret Avery, who played Shug Avery, and Oprah Winfrey, who played Sophia, also earned Oscar nominations for best supporting actress.
Winfrey returned to the 2023 film adaptation as a producer. In 2020, she surprised Orange is the New Black actress Danielle Brooks with a Zoom call to tell her that she had landed the role of Sophia.
“I wanted to be the one to tell you I have such love for her, this character, everything she represents and everything she brought to my life,” Winfrey told Brooks at the time. “And what I’m hoping is that she does the same thing for you.”
The Spielberg film also earned an Academy Award nomination for best picture and was nominated for five Golden Globes, with Goldberg winning for best actress in a drama.
The film is expected to be released on December 25.
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