Almost two years after news broke that the Madonna biopic had been scrapped, the Queen of Pop herself provided an update.
In June 2022, Ozark star Julia Garner fought off heavy competition from stars such as Florence Pugh, Alexa Demie and Sydney Sweeney to be cast as the singer in the highly anticipated film.
Auditions for the biopic took place in February 2022, with actors reportedly taking part in a gruelling “bootcamp” supervised by Madonna herself.
In January last year, however, it was reported that the film was no longer in development as Madonna, who was slated to direct it, was preparing for her Celebration world tour.
“I don’t want to tell too much. I want to keep things—yeah, fingers crossed,” Garner said in an interview at the time.
In a social media post on Monday, Madonna said she had been facing difficulty in how she should tell her life’s story.
After listening to producers and agents tell her why she couldn’t make the film which she had been working on for four years, Madonna said, she realised “that everything in my life is going to be challenged”.
“No easy rides for me. I guess I should be grateful. It forces me to think outside the box. I did not have a normal life,” she wrote on Instagram.
“I cannot make this in the normal way. Spending time with my creative friends was just the fuel I needed to keep going!”
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She would not make herself “smaller”, she said and asked her fans if she should turn her biopic into a TV series instead.
“We cannot shrink and make ourselves smaller. If you want something badly enough in life—the whole universe will conspire to [help] you get it,” she said.
“Should I make the story of my life into a series or a feature film.”
The biopic was first announced in 2020 and seems to be back in development. In July, Madonna posted a series of photos with a typewriter in which she appeared to be writing a screenplay titled Who’s That Girl, a reference to her 1987 film and song of the same name.