THE COLOR PURPLE Director Blitz Bazawule to Direct Upcoming BLACK SAMURAI

Fresh off the heals of his 2023 musical hit The Color Purple, director Blitz Bazawule has found his next project.

According to Variety, the director will be working with Warner Bros. on a new take on the story of Yasuke, the 16th century African warrior. In addition to Warner Bros, three other studios were also interested in the project, resulting in a bidding war. Bazawule will be directing from his own script and producing the film under his Inward Gaze banner.

Before directing the highly acclaimed musical last year, Bazawule worked with Beyonce on her visual album Black is KING and Ava DuVernay on her television series Cherish the Day.

A version of this legend has been trying to make it to the screen for years. A previous script, written by Doug Miro, would have starred Chadwick Boseman before his passing in 2020. It had been announced that Boseman would also produce the film through his production company Picturestart. 

Check out BroadwayWorld's interview with Bazawule HERE.

About The Color Purple

Produced by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Scott Sanders, and Quincy Jones, 2023's The Color Purple is a bold new take on the classic story of love and resilience, adapted from the beloved novel and the Broadway musical.

Torn apart from her sister Nettie (Halle Bailey) and her children, Celie (Fantasia Barrino in her major motion picture debut, reprising her 2005 role from Broadway) faces many hardships in her life, including an abusive husband simply called Mister (Colman Domingo).

With the support of sultry singer Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson) and stand-her-ground stepdaughter Sofia (Danielle Brooks, Tony Award-nominated for the role on Broadway), Celie ultimately finds extraordinary strength in the unbreakable bonds of a new kind of sisterhood.

The film is directed by Blitz Bazawule from a screenplay by acclaimed playwright and WGA Award winner Marcus Gardley (“The Maid”). Bazawule is a Ghanaian multimedia artist who was a co-director on Beyonce’s Black is KING and made his feature debut with the critically acclaimed Afrofuturistic “The Burial of Kojo.”

The Color Purple is currently available to rent or stream on Max.