- 7 weeks ago
From a hot Black List script to a star casting search, Madonna’s long-teased biopic spent years cycling through rewrites, title changes, and format shifts before collapsing entirely. Join us as we dig into the production chaos behind the abandoned project, the creative clashes that derailed it, and why bringing the Queen of Pop’s life to the screen proved so impossible.
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00:00A visual autobiography?
00:01Yes, of course.
00:02Don't call it a biopic.
00:03No, but yeah, I would never call it a biopic.
00:07It seemed inevitable for the longest time.
00:10Madonna was writing and directing her own major Hollywood biopic,
00:13Julia Garner had won the coveted lead role,
00:16and fans were eagerly awaiting a cinematic retelling
00:18of one of pop music's most influential careers.
00:21So, what went wrong?
00:23Netflix was interested in turning Madonna's life into a limited series,
00:27but she couldn't get the script she wrote back
00:29unless she bought it at an extortionist's price.
00:32Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:34And today, we'll be taking a deep dive into the Madonna biopic
00:37and the protracted, torturous production hell it languished in
00:41before its eventual cancellation.
00:43All right, this is my final offer.
00:45I'll give you $1,000 and my gold bracelet.
00:48Take it, okay?
00:51Now give me some fish.
00:53Chapter 1, The Blonde Ambition.
00:56I was at a party and there was a huge crowd of people,
01:01but we just saw each other and we knew.
01:04Just like that?
01:06Yeah.
01:07News of a planned Madonna biopic first broke in 2017
01:11when Universal Pictures acquired Blonde Ambition,
01:14a screenplay by Elise Hollander that topped the blacklist
01:17and quickly generated serious industry buzz.
01:19The story focused on Madonna's early years in New York
01:22and her rise to fame,
01:23a period that has already been heavily mythologized in pop culture.
01:27You must be my lucky star
01:30Cause you make the darkness seem so far
01:35While fans applauded the news,
01:37the reaction from Madonna herself was very negative.
01:40She posted on Instagram that nobody else could know
01:43what she had lived through or truly understand her journey,
01:46arguing that only she had the authority to tell her own story.
01:49And I was thinking about how the music is so influenced by so many parts of the world
01:54and each time I collaborate with somebody or I work with another artist
01:59or I just work with Mirwes, for instance,
02:02I have a different feeling.
02:05She also criticized what she viewed as opportunistic storytelling around her life.
02:09With Madonna's very public rejection of the idea,
02:13the studio would likely have had a tough time getting the rights to her music.
02:17It was no surprise that shortly after the announcement,
02:20blonde ambition was quietly shelved.
02:22He supports you, for he loves you,
02:26understands you, is one of you.
02:29If not, how could he love me?
02:34Chapter 2. Taking control of her own story.
02:37So what do you do when you don't like the version of your story floating around?
02:41Apparently, you write it yourself.
02:43Well, the reason I'm doing it is because a bunch of people have tried to write movies about me,
02:48but they're always men.
02:51Ugh.
02:52In 2020, Madonna took things into her own hands with the announcement
02:55that she would co-write and direct a new biopic at Universal,
02:59the very same studio that picked up blonde ambition.
03:01This was reported to be a collaboration with Oscar-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody,
03:06under the working title Little Sparrow.
03:09Madonna has been teasing this project for a couple of weeks now,
03:13sharing some pictures on Instagram, some videos as well, there you go,
03:17of herself working alongside Oscar-winner Diablo Cody, who will co-write the project.
03:21Madonna described the film as focusing on her journey as an artist navigating a male-dominated industry.
03:27This proposed story would touch on key milestones like her Like a Prayer album,
03:31appearance in Evita, and her connection to members of New York's ballroom scene.
03:36Come on, go.
03:39Let your body move to the music.
03:42The scope alone made the project ambitious, but it also raised an unavoidable question.
03:47Could a biopic maintain objectivity when its subject was also behind every creative decision on screen?
03:54You know what? There's nobody on this planet that can write or direct and make a movie about me better
04:01than me.
04:02And that is just the truth.
04:04Chapter 3. The Search for Movie Madonna.
04:07Everyone in Hollywood wants this part, and all they have to do is impress the director, whose name is Madonna.
04:14Madonna, she's also writing it and producing it and working with casting director Carmen Cuba to find the star.
04:20And auditions have been going on for months.
04:22By 2022, the biopic had resulted in one of Hollywood's most intense casting searches.
04:28Madonna reportedly created a shortlist of potential actresses she believed had the goods to take her on.
04:33This included names like Florence Pugh, Odessa Young, Alexa Demme, and Julia Garner.
04:38I'm obsessed with Inventing Anna. I just watched it.
04:41And Julia Garner, I think, is one of the best actresses around right now.
04:44I can look at her on the left. She even looks like Madonna.
04:49She does look like a young Madonna.
04:50Give her that little gap tooth and I'm sold.
04:53What followed was described as an unusually demanding audition process,
04:57with candidates undergoing extended choreography sessions, script readings directly with Madonna,
05:03and performance tests that included singing her songs in front of her.
05:06Papa don't preach, I'm in trouble deep. Papa don't preach, I'm in losing sleep.
05:14While the process bordered on theatrical and how intensely it played out,
05:18it showed just how personally invested Madonna remained in the project.
05:22Garner, who was just coming off her Emmy-winning work on Ozark,
05:26ultimately clinched the role, a decision that was met with acclaim from critics and fans alike.
05:31Is that just rumor? Nope, there it is, side by side.
05:34What? And you actually got on stage with her to sort of, I guess, maybe help prepare, get into the
05:38role?
05:39Well, yeah, we just, you know, we had fun on stage.
05:42For a brief moment, the project appeared to have found its sweet spot and production was finally within reach.
05:48But when you play Madonna, when you sing and dance like Madonna, that's, how do you prepare for that?
05:53I mean, you know as much as I do.
05:55Oh, okay.
05:56So, yeah.
05:57Maybe next time when I come back.
05:59Okay.
06:00Chapter 4, Stuck in Limbo.
06:02Madonna, I dare you to do a world tour and play your greatest motherfuckin' hits.
06:11Four decades?
06:12Yeah, bitch.
06:13As in 40 years?
06:14Following the announcement of Julia Garner's casting, things seemed to grind to a halt.
06:19The next major announcement from Madonna came in January 2023, but it had nothing to do with the film.
06:25Instead, it was reported that Madonna was going on the Celebration Tour, a global retrospective of her decades-long career.
06:3380s, 90s, 2000s.
06:36Four decades of music avec moi.
06:39M-L-V-C.
06:41Welcome to the party, bitches.
06:42Soon after, reports indicated that Universal had removed the biopic from its active slate.
06:47While some outlets described the move as a delay and others as a cancellation, Madonna's representatives maintained that the project
06:54would return sometime in the near future.
06:56There's a lot of unenlightened people in the world.
06:58Yeah.
06:59They can't see into the future.
07:01Still, the decision to go on a lengthy tour in the middle of development meant that the film was already
07:07on shaky ground.
07:08Not only was this bad for Universal, which had already invested a lot of money into the project, it was
07:14also bad for Garner, as the extensive training she underwent now seemed pointless.
07:19Oh, when is it gonna get made?
07:20Is it gonna, when, oh, we're supposed to film it in April, but now we're filming it in September.
07:24And now, I mean, it's the same thing.
07:27It's so, like, not dramatic.
07:30Chapter 5, A Ray of Light.
07:32We've been hearing about this one for nearly four years, with reports of different writers and actresses in the mix.
07:38Yesterday, on social media, the Grammy winner shared a series of photos from the most Madonna writers ever.
07:45After her tour came to an end in 2024, Madonna signaled that the biopic was still very much alive.
07:51She put up an Instagram post indicating that development had resumed, this time with writer Erin Cressida-Wilson.
07:57Reports also suggested the film had been retitled, Who's That Girl?, referencing Madonna's 1987 film and its accompanying soundtrack hit.
08:14This reworking suggested a possible tonal or structural reset rather than a continuation of the earlier draft.
08:22Around the same time, Julia Garner also confirmed in interviews that she remained attached to the project, which quelled many
08:28fans' fears.
08:29So, is this happening? Is this real?
08:32Yeah.
08:32You're playing Madonna?
08:33Yeah.
08:33Oh my god!
08:34Yes.
08:35I can't say too much about it, but yes, it's a work in progress.
08:39However, despite renewed activity, updates about the actual production remained sparse.
08:44The project appeared to exist in a constant state of revision, during which Momentum was repeatedly rebuilt, but never sustained
08:52long enough to actually transition into production.
08:54Because if you don't make yourself vulnerable, you can't channel creativity, right?
09:00And a lot of my pain, my sorrow, my suffering, my feelings of being vulnerable allow me to create.
09:09Chapter 6, a Netflix limited series?
09:11What would a TV show about Madonna be like?
09:15I mean, is there, you know, it could be a full episode.
09:17She's done so much in her career where she's, you know, a full episode of her putting on a cone
09:22bra.
09:23I mean, that, you remember when she had that cone bra?
09:26By 2025, the project had shifted formats once again, with a limited series reportedly in development at Netflix.
09:33The move made sense, as it offered Madonna ample space to explore her lengthy career without needing to compress all
09:39of her different eras into a single narrative arc.
09:48Sean Levy was attached as an executive producer alongside Madonna, and Julia Garner was still expected to portray the lead
09:55role.
09:56However, complications quickly emerged.
09:58Madonna later revealed that she could not reuse earlier drafts of her script without repurchasing them from Universal, which had
10:06set it at, quote, an extortionist's price.
10:08And I had to, like, call people up, call up the heads of studios, call up my agents and threaten
10:15them and say that I will, like, stand in front of the building and protest and make everybody's life a
10:22misery if they go through with it.
10:24At the same time, her search for a suitable showrunner for the limited series proved difficult, and this left the
10:29project without a stable creative anchor.
10:32Despite a surge of renewed optimism, the series ultimately stalled before any actual production began.
10:38Madonna's life is so interesting and iconic.
10:40So, Madonna, I don't know what agents and producers you're talking to, but you better make this show yourself.
10:46Just put the money up and put it on the streaming channel yourself, and you would make a ton of
10:51money, as many fans as you have.
10:53Chapter 7, It All Falls Apart
10:56After nearly a decade of will they, won't they deliver the bloody biopic, Madonna confirmed in June 2026 that the
11:03project was officially cancelled.
11:05So what's going on? Why was it cancelled?
11:06Well, it was cancelled because of budgets. Madonna basically had been working with Universal for two years, and then she
11:11was like, I've had a really big life, I need a really big budget.
11:14Obviously.
11:15And Universal couldn't cover her budget.
11:17In a sit-down with Interview Magazine, Madonna cited prolonged disagreements with Universal over budget and creative scope as the
11:24underlying reasons.
11:26She explained that she had worked extensively on multiple script versions, and even explored filming in Serbia to reduce costs.
11:33I can only imagine what the budget was.
11:35Squillions.
11:37Just so much.
11:39But it is Madonna, and I suppose it's her life story, and she wants it to be amazing.
11:43However, she seemed to realize that the scale required to properly depict her life was not something the studio was
11:48willing to support.
11:49There was also reportedly a tonal divide, with Madonna seemingly pushing for a grittier approach, while the studio preferred something
11:56lighter and more commercially conventional.
11:59Neither vision fully aligned, resulting in a prolonged stalemate.
12:03You're frozen, when your heart's not open.
12:09In June 2026, fans got a glimpse of what that biopic might have looked like with Julia Garner's cameo in
12:15Madonna's Bring Your Love music video.
12:26Post-mortem.
12:27Are some music icons simply too difficult to adapt?
12:30We go out of, we go home, we go moon is on.
12:36The broader conversation surrounding Madonna's biopic touches on a growing skepticism toward musical biopics as a genre.
12:43While films like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman achieved major box office success,
12:48both faced some criticism for the rather formulaic storytelling and sanitized portrayals.
12:53Maybe if you ask them, they would meet me.
12:57Tell them I want to talk.
12:59Just talk.
13:00I think it's wonderful that we speak of you as a person.
13:05My family.
13:06That assessment was especially loud with the 2026 Michael Jackson biopic,
13:11which received heavy criticism for the apparent hero worship of Jackson
13:15and the glossing over of more controversial moments in his life.
13:18I'm gonna look him straight in the eye.
13:21This is my life.
13:26Within that context, Madonna presents a unique challenge.
13:30She isn't defined by a single era, scandal, or achievement, but by her constant reinvention.
13:37As a result, any attempt to simplify her story risks stripping away what made her extraordinary in the first place.
13:43Perhaps that explains why this project repeatedly collapsed under the tremendous weight of its own ambition.
13:49You know that we are living in the material world, and I am a material girl.
13:56What do you make of Madonna's proposed biopic and its eventual cancellation?
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