Ghana-born filmmaker and composer Blitz Bazawule has been set to direct the film adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway musical reimagining of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel “The Color Purple” for Warner Bros. Pictures.
The story depicts the lives of African American families and relationships in early twentieth-century Georgia and was previously adapted into a more straightforward drama film by Steven Spielberg in 1985.
The 2005 stage musical version boasts jazz, ragtime, gospel, blues and African rhythms with a book by Marsha Norman and music by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. Marcus Gardley is writing the screenplay for this film adaptation of that.
Bazawule most recently co-directed Beyonce’s Disney+ visual album feature “Black Is King,” but it was his work on 2018’s acclaimed “The Burial Of Kojo” that caught the eye of producers Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Scott Sanders, and Quincy Jones.
Source: Deadline