Five Grammy wins, including Album of the Year, are not enough for Jon Batiste as he continues his hot streak through Hollywood. The Oscar winner has joined The Color Purple remake, produced by Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Quincy Jones.
Batiste will make his big-screen acting debut as Grady, a debonair, sweet-talking piano man who is the epitome of charm and eloquence and husband of Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), according to Deadline. Bennet Guillory played the role in the original 1985 feature.
The New Orleans native is a Julliard School alum who won the Oscar for Best Original Score and a BAFTA Award last year for his work on Soul. He shared the awards with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. In addition to his Grammy nominations and win for his album We Are, he has been nominated by the Recording Academy 14 times since 2019. He is set to curate a concert series for Carnegie Hall this year and continue his run as band leader and musical director for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Blitz Bazawule, director of Black is King, will direct the musical for Warner Bros., which is based on the Tony-winning Broadway show. Marcus Gardley wrote the script based on Alice Walker’s novel. Spielberg, who directed and produced the original film; Winfrey, who co-starred in it; and Jones, who also was a producer on the first pic, will all return to produce this iteration of the story.
The original Broadway musical debuted in 2005, earning 11 Tony Award nominations. It ran for 910 performances. The 2015 revival scored 4 Tony nominations and won for best revival and for Cynthia Erivo’s Broadway debut. The musical has also won Grammy and Emmy Awards.
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