12 Movies & TV Shows You Didn't Know Were Remade On Broadway
5. The Color Purple
In 1983, The Color Purple was the novel to read and arguably still is. The book won a Pulitzer Prize that year and was quickly remade as a film only two years later starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey and directed by the legendary Steven Spielberg. It's surprising that after such success on both platforms, it took another twenty years for musical rendition to come to light.
The Color Purple premiered on Broadway in 2005 after financial backing from Oprah Winfrey and was regarded as an instant success. Powerhouse LaChanze starred in the musical as Celie and was the talk of the New York theater scene. Not only was she nominated for and won "Leading Actress in a Musical", the show itself garnered another ten nominations - mimicking the eleven Oscar nominations the original film was awarded.
The show was revived on Broadway in 2015 starring now Academy Award nominee, Cynthia Erivo and found itself again being one of the biggest shows of the year. The revival won two Tony Awards, one Grammy Award, and one Emmy Award.