‘The Color Purple’ Domestic Box Office Delivers Record-Breaking Debut

The Big Picture

• The Color Purple had a strong opening day, earning $18.15 million and becoming the second-biggest Christmas Day opening of all time.
• With an audience score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film’s success could signal a comeback for movie musicals.
• Warner Bros. Discovery’s simultaneous success with The Color Purple, Aquaman 2, and Wonka shows their bold strategy paid off, despite the crowded holiday weekend.

While Warner Bros. Discovery held its breath as Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom took its long-awaited plunge into theaters over the holiday weekend, the studio’s other fresh entry, The Color Purple, blew the competition out of the water at the box office on Christmas Day. Drumming up $18.15 million on its opening day, the musical drama earned itself bragging rights as the second-biggest Christmas Day opening of all time, falling just behind Warner Bros. 2009 feature, Sherlock Holmes, which raked in $24.6 million. The movie also delivered the biggest Christmas Day opening for a film since 2009, and was the number one movie of the day at the domestic box office.

Landing an audience score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, could The Color Purple point to a fresh start for movie musicals? The movie is certainly in good company as the Timothée Chalamet-led Wonka, another musical from Warner Bros, is also concurrently exceeding expectations at the box office. The movie stars Fantasia Barrino (American Idol), Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black), Colman Domingo (Passing Strange), Taraji P. Henson (Empire) and Halle Bailey (The Little Mermaid).

The popularity of The Color Purple and Wonk certainly alludes to a hopeful future for movie musicals. With other fan-favorite crossovers including West Side Story, Les Misérables, and Rent all releasing during the holiday season, none came remotely close to nabbing the impressive numbers seen by Warner Bros. Discovery’s title. Overall, it was a massive win for the studio which also dominated sales with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Wonka. With The Color Purple, Aquaman 2, and Wonka being released within the same time frame, the studio took an absolute leap of faith hoping that fans would dole out their hard-earned bucks on either a musical or superhero film during one of the busiest weekends of the year.

The Future of Movie Musicals

With The Color Purple’s popularity breathing new life into the genre, it will be up to upcoming films like Mean Girls and Wicked Part 1 to keep the steam going into the New Year. An adaptation of the stage production (which was an adaptation of the 2004 film of the same name which was itself an adaptation of a book), Mean Girls cruises into cinemas at the beginning of the year and is already expected to be a top earner for Paramount Pictures.

The same can be said for the arrival of the first part of Jon M. Chu’s feature-length adaptation of Wicked, which hopes to defy gravity over next year’s Thanksgiving weekend. While Mean Girls will certainly be a gauge of just how much audiences are back into the musical spirit, Wicked will be the real test. According to Playbill, after two decades on Broadway, the Stephen Schwartz-penned musical is the second-biggest earner, just behind The Lion King – take that Phantom! If that figure tells us anything, it’s that the title has all the makings of the biggest movie musical box office seller of all time should Universal play its cards right.

Find out everything we know about Warner Bros’ The Color Purple in our handy guide and see it on the big screen now. Check out the trailer below and catch Mean Girls and Wicked Part 1 in theaters on January 12, 2024, and November 27, 2024, respectively.

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