Elizabeth Banks, Anne Thompson Feel Twitter Wrath: Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Color Purple’ Movie Forgotten Flop

Actress Elizabeth Banks and writer Anne Thompson have learned that forgetting or dissing Steven Spielberg’s beloved movie, The Color Purple, can bring on the wrath of Twitter. According to the Telegraph, Banks came under fire when accepting her Women In Film 2017 Crystal Award on Tuesday, and used the moment to call out iconic director Spielberg for what she claimed was a dearth of female leading stars in his movies. Banks seemingly went for Steven’s jugular when she said she has supported every movie Spielberg has created, and that he had “never” created a movie that had a leading female role.

“I went to Indiana Jones and Jaws and every movie Steven Spielberg ever made, and by the way, he’s never made a movie with a female lead. Sorry, Steven. I don’t mean to call your a** out, but it’s true.”

However, Banks was quickly corrected, because Whoopi Goldberg took a starring role in The Color Purple, a beloved movie based on Alice Walker’s novel of the same name. The Color Purple is a movie with such a big cult following in the black community that people often quote lines from the movie more than 30 years after it debuted in 1985. To add insult to injury, the Telegraph reports that when Banks was allegedly corrected on her mistake by an audience member, Banks moved on and didn’t issue an immediate mea culpa, nor begin praising Spielberg’s The Color Purple. Oprah Winfrey also had a big role in the movie.

According to The Wrap, Banks was off the mark not only because she forgot the iconic classic film The Color Purple, but didn’t take note of other Spielberg movies that were female-based, such as The BFG. The event was held at the Hilton Hotel on Tuesday, June 13, in Beverly Hills, California. But reverberations from Banks’ comments went viral on Thursday, June 15.

On the Color Purple you are totally right! $93 million domestic! 78% Metacritic. No Oscars out of 10 noms.

— Anne Thompson (@akstanwyck) June 15, 2017

Also going viral is a now-deleted tweet that can still be seen, as of this writing, in the Google cache page of Anne Thompson’s Twitter page. As if coming to the defense of Banks, Thompson, a self-described L.A. movie maven and editor-at-large at IndieWire, called The Color Purple a flop.

“One of his few flops early in his career, Always, starred Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfuss. And the Color Purple was another flop.”

Before long, Anne was also quickly corrected on Twitter.

As seen above, Oprah Winfrey relaxed in her studio office in Chicago, on December 18, 1985. At that time, the 31-year-old Oprah was preparing for her movie debut that same week in The Color Purple, and likely had no idea how successful the movie would become.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os_XCoe6FD8

Warning: The following video contains language that might be offensive.

[Featured Image by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]