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Although “The Color Purple” wasn’t all that popular with academy voters, it is by dollars and cents a popular diversion in most of the country--including rural Southern towns where black-themed films might not be expected to do that well.

That’s what it appears in Warner Bros.’ sales reports for Southern “two-week towns” (where a two-week run customarily exhausts the audience potential). The film has been running 10 weeks in Monroe, N.C. (pop. 12,639), where it has taken in nearly $39,000 to date. In Greenville, Miss., where $10,000 is a standard gross, it has notched over $30,000 after nearly two months.

Other notable runs: Opelousas, La. (nearly $20,000), Natchez, La. (more than $25,000), Orangeburg, S.C. (almost $26,000), and Vicksburg, Miss. In the latter, its lone theater took in $327 on a Saturday night--after seven weeks.

“It sounds strange by our standards, but that’s a very sizable gross (for that community),” boasted a WB spokesman. He said that the seemingly minuscule Southern rural grosses are considered “very important” in “Purple’s” overall take--now closing in on $80 million.