The Color Purple Box Office report by 4th weekend

The Color Purple is exceeding expectations as it quickly passes a major box office milestone. The new movie musical is an adaptation of the 2005 Broadway show of the same name, which itself is an adaptation of Alice Walker’s iconic 1982 novel. The movie opened at No. 1 on Christmas Day, though it eventually took fourth place at the box office for the week, behind Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Wonka, and Migration.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, The Color Purple box office is now projected to exceed expectations by earning a domestic gross of $17.7 million by the end of the 4-day New Year’s weekend. This will bring its cumulative domestic total to over $50 million, quickly passing that major commercial milestone. In doing so, it will dash onto the chart of the Top 50 highest-performing domestic releases of 2023 in just eight days.

How The Color Purple Compares To Other Major 2023 Blockbusters

The Color Purple release was already projected to earn more than $100 million at the domestic box office. However, its gross for its first full weekend in theaters shows that it may perform even better than that, climbing quickly up the chart. At the time of writing, only 23 movies from 2023 have passed the $100 million milestone at the box office, meaning the new musical will likely halve the distance between its current chart position and the top (which is occupied by the smash hit Barbie, with $636.2 million) by the end of its run.

The Color Purple musical has also performed well in terms of movie musicals for the year. In fact, it is already the fifth highest-grossing movie musical of 2023 at the domestic box office, not including the blockbuster concert movie Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Below, check out how quickly The Color Purple reached $50 million compared to the next highest-grossing 2023 musicals, as well as the total domestic grosses of those other titles: