The Material Girl’s biopic will no longer be materializing. Despite a long casting process to hire someone to play the Queen of Pop, Madonna has scrapped the biopic film she was going to direct herself and is instead going to go out on tour (via Variety and THR).
READ MORE: Julia Garner Has Been Offered The Madonna Role In Universal’s Biopic
Set up at Universal Pictures, the person who is probably crushed the most— or relieved, depending on how daunted she was— about this news is “Ozark” star Julia Garner who was cast as Madge last year.
Apparently, Madonna embarking on a world tour and the time it would take would mess up the film, but sources tell THR that Universal put the project in turnaround last year anyhow (aka, it wouldn’t have been made regardless, and it sounds like Universal maybe became unhappy with the project and or script).
The project was co-written by “Secretary” writer Erin Cressida Wilson and Madonna, though Diablo Cody was initially set to pen the project (it’s unclear why she left exactly, but she apparently didn’t quit).
From the sounds of it, Universal wasn’t 100% sold on the script sounds like it ballooned to an unmanageable size. “You have 40 years of success, and it’s very hard to put that into one movie,” one source told THR, and the trade noted that none of the drafts of the scripts weren’t under 180 pages (which equals about three hours). Apparently, the length created conversations where the producers thought about splitting the film into two parts, and or turning the project into an event series, but it sounds like none of those options are on the table any longer.
Music biopics are becoming more and more popular ever since the back-to-back successes of “Straight Outta Compton,” the Academy Award-nominated “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and “Rocketman.”
Madonna had previously said she wanted to direct her own biopic because she wanted control and not someone else messing with her narrative. “No one’s going to tell my story but me,” she said. For now, it sounds like no one is making it, but obviously, a foundation has been built; Madonna is an icon, and it’s only a matter of time.