Oprah screens first The Color Purple trailer at CinemaCon
The self-procalimed "not your mama's Color Purple" hits theaters Christmas Day
Warner Bros. kicked off their CinemaCon presentation by giving everyone a car. Well, sort of; they invited Oprah Winfrey to present the first trailer for the upcoming musical adaptation of The Color Purple. Based on the Alice Walker novel as well as the Broadway musical, the latest Winfrey-produced Color Purple leans into those extravagant theatrics. As the trailer says, “This ain’t your mama’s Color Purple.” Still, as Winfrey later qualified, “Your mama’s still gonna love it.”
The trailer is very much an adaptation of a Broadway musical, filled with bombast and brass. Trading Spielberg’s melodrama for lavish setpieces, the movie leans into the magical realism of the story with visual flare, jumping from time periods and characters, from swamps to nightclubs with Baz Luhrman-like energy. It really does not look anything like the original.
“It holds great personal meaning to me,” said Winfrey. “When I was cast in the film, it was my first acting role, and now we’re doing a brand new version of The Color Purple, that could only happen with the perfect director, who envisioned the film like the Broadway musical, bringing in magical realism and family wholesomeness.”