The musical adaptation of The Color Purple finally came out on Christmas and took theatres by storm on its opening day. With $18.2 million grossed domestically, the latest take on Alice Walker’s iconic novel made history with the second-biggest Christmas Day opening of all time.
Box office experts were predicting this film would gross $8–10 million on its opening day, but they weren’t even close! The Color Purple exceeded our wildest excitations with its impressive $18.2 million domestic opening, which is truly one for the history books.
This marks the second-largest Christmas Day opening for a movie since Sherlock Holmes, which grossed $24.6 million following its release in 2009. To make the whole thing even better, The Color Purple also scored the highest-grossing domestic opening day for a musical during the post-pandemic, breaking the record recently set by Wonka with $14.4 million.
The Color Purple is an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical of the same name, based on Alice Walker’s seminal novel. It centers on the trials and tribulations of Celie Harris-Johnson (Fantasia Barrino), an African-American woman facing many hardships in the South during the early 1900s. In addition to Barrino, the film also stars Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., Halle Bailey, Ciara, Jon Batiste, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
