Universal paid big money for the rights to make a Madonna biopic – but it never happened, and Madonna’s been explaining what happened. Until Toy Story 5 came along, the film set to be the biggest of the year at the global box office has been the contentious Michael Jackson biopic, Michael. Even as this ... Why the Madonna biopic fell apart
Universal paid big money for the rights to make a Madonna biopic – but it never happened, and Madonna’s been explaining what happened.
Until Toy Story 5 came along, the film set to be the biggest of the year at the global box office has been the contentious Michael Jackson biopic, Michael. Even as this is being written, someone is trying to figure out how to make the sequel to that, while sidestepping anything the family might disapprove of.
Music biopics have been a quietly reliable source of income for Hollywood. There have been stumbles, but movies such as Bohemian Rhapsody and even something like One Love tend to bring in an audience and help sell a chunk more music, too.
Which makes the idea of a film on the life of Madonna something of a given, at least on paper. Just a few years back, it looked like it was happening, with Universal Pictures bidding for the project back in 2021, and emerging victorious.
Julia Garner was cast as Madonna, and assorted screenwriters came in to work on the film. Madonna was hands on, and the expectation was that she’d probably direct as well. But she’s now revealed why the film never happened, in spite of her working on it for two years. And it came down to money.
“We had a falling out”, she told Interview magazine of her relationship with the studio. It came to budget, “because I needed… I’ve had an extraordinary life. I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget.”
Universal “couldn’t get their heads around” the price, even when Madonna offered to make the film for less money by shooting in Serbia. The studio hasn’t commented on this interview, but Madonna’s implication was that Universal didn’t believe she’s go to Serbia for production. Bottom line: things fell apart.
She tried to take the production to Netflix for a mini-series instead, but given that Universal owned the script, it put enough of a price tag on that to kill the Netflix project off. Again, Universal hasn’t put its side of the story.
For now, the film is in limbo, with little sign that it’s coming back. In the meantime, Universal has international rights to Michael and presumably Michael 2, and so remains interested in biopics. It’s just not paying for the Madonna one.
