Universal has pulled the plug on a biopic of Madonna, that the star was set to write and direct.
Universal has ended plans for a Madonna biopic which would have been written and directed by the Queen of Pop herself.
The project was first announced back in 2020, with Ozark star Julia Garner landing the leading role as Madonna. The casting certainly seemed to go over better than the recent announcement that Marisa Abela would be taking the title role in Back To Black, the Amy Winehouse biopic that is currently shooting in London.
However, despite working on the script with Juno's Diablo Cody and The Girl On The Train’s Erin Cressida Wilson, Madonna won’t get the chance to direct the story of her life, or not with this incarnation anyway. Progress on the film is said to have run into trouble at some point last year and Universal have now chosen to step away from the project. The star herself has also now decided to embark on a world tour, so that’s unlikely to have helped.
The story was said to focus on Madonna’s career up until the early 1990s, and given the seemingly endless string of hits from that era that she racked up, you can see why Universal would be interested in snagging the rights to a pop star biopic, a subgenre that at the very least, continues to bring in solid theatrical numbers.
As to what has gone wrong, it’s hard to say but for the time being it looks like a Madonna movie isn’t happening. That said, we did hear last week that another iconic star who rose in the 80s, Michael Jackson, is getting a biopic that will be directed by Antoine Fuqua. We’ll bring you more on all of the many musical biopic announcements that seem to keep coming as we hear them.
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