ALICE WALKER’S SEMINAL 1982 novel The Color Purple is a story that warrants retelling. Following the trials and triumphs of Celie, an African-American woman living with an abusive husband in 1900s Georgia, it was first adapted for the screen as a drama by Steven Spielberg in 1985.
Now it’s the turn of filmmaker Blitz Bazawule, who takes the story in a fresh, new musical direction, with Spielberg on producing duties alongside Oprah Winfrey, Scott Sanders and Quincy Jones.
Bazawule recalls an early phone call with Spielberg. “I told him, ‘We’re going to give Celie a big imagination. She’s going to see things like a 50-piece orchestra,” he remembers. “He was just like, ‘Go make your movie.’” Here, he tells Empire how he did just that.