Warner Bros’ “The Color Purple” amassed a record-setting $18 million in receipts on Christmas Day 2023. Then it just nosedived to oblivion. Its numbers just kept dropping on a daily basis.
This was a case of the film being extremely frontloaded. Even though word of mouth was positive, reviews were more-than-decent, and audiences liked it — an A CinemaScore and 95% user rating on RT — but it certainly did not break through outside of its core demographic.
Variety is now reporting that Warner Bros lost $40 million on the film. It's a hefty sum of money that must have had WB CEO David Zaslav desperately searching for another tax write off. It’s certainly not a historic bomb, but it’s enough to have Warners think twice about greenlighting such projects in the future.
“The Color Purple” had a budget of around $100 million. It was produced for Oscars, but did not make much of a dent once nominations were announced — outside of Danielle Brooks’ supporting actress nod.
It doesn’t help that, of its $67 million worldwide gross, only $6 million came from overseas receipts. This should be a lesson to all: nobody asked for this remake, and if you do embark on such a pricey film then at least try to hire a veteran filmmaker, rather than a newcomer like Blitz Bazawule.
It didn’t help that one of its stars, Taraji P. Henson, was, quite literally, campaigning against the producers of the film. Henson was peeved off that, during the shoot of “The Color Purple,” producers made the cast drive themselves to the set in rental cars.
So, who were the producers of “The Color Purple”? They included Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones, among others.