Oprah Winfrey On Asking Steven Spielberg “For Permission” To Make ‘The Color Purple’ Again & Why He Said Yes – Hollywood Premiere

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It’s not often that a Hollywood premiere is met with continual cheers, gasps, tears and several rounds of applause during its screening, but that was Warner Bros.’ The Color Purple‘s force of nature at the David Geffen Academy Museum Theater Wednesday night.

The feature take of the 2005 Broadway musical, which in and of itself is an adaptation of the 1982 Alice Walker novel and Steven Spielberg‘s 1985 11x Oscar nominated movie, could change the tune of musicals at the box office when it opens on Christmas Day.

While musicals have paled as recently as 2019 pre-pandemic with Cats, when they work, they work big on the big screen, and the story about a young Black southern woman’s struggle to find her identify over four decades is not without its spiritual showstoppers.

Oprah Winfrey, who produced the original Broadway show, starred as Sofia in the Spielberg pic (and received a Best Supporting Actress nomination) and is producer here on the latest movie, told the crowd last night, “This film couldn’t have happened without the original, and couldn’t have happened without Steven Spielberg allowing it to happen.” Oprah, Steven Spielberg and Scott Sanders take the stage ahead of #TheColorPurple premiere pic.twitter.com/PNAYDOGK29 “I had to call Steven –(producer) Scott (Sanders) said ‘You call him’–I called Steven and asked for permission.” “We’ve been asking him for several years,” said Winfrey about approaching Spielberg for the OK to do a musical remake of the original film. “Steven wasn’t sure, then he said yes in 2018,” she continued. “What made me say ‘yes’ was your production of The Color Purple musical on Broadway, which I thought was extraordinary,” said Spielberg, “I didn’t really know if Color Purple had another