{"id":513093,"date":"2026-06-22T19:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T19:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/513093\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T19:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T19:26:10","slug":"madonna-biopic-with-julia-garner-fell-apart-at-universal-over-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/513093\/","title":{"rendered":"Madonna: Biopic With Julia Garner Fell Apart at Universal Over Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPerhaps it\u2019s no surprise that Madonna<\/a>, who proudly boasted of loving the finer things in hit single \u201cMaterial Girl,\u201d would have money concerns surrounding a biopic<\/a> that never came to fruition. <\/p>\n

\n\tDuring a sit-down with Interview<\/a>, Madonna discussed the fact that the movie that she planned to direct about her life, which had Julia Garner<\/a> attached to star, never moved forward at Universal Pictures<\/a>. Madonna is a Grammy-winning music<\/a> icon known for such multi-platinum-selling albums as Like a Virgin, True Blue and Like a Prayer, in addition to an acting career that includes A League of Their Own and Evita.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was supposed to make a movie about my life,\u201d Madonna told the publication. \u201cI worked on my script for two years and spent two years at Universal Studios with the line producers doing budgeting and casting. We had a falling out, me and Universal, regarding budget because I needed \u2014 I\u2019ve had an extraordinary life. I\u2019ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe went on to note that the film could never have an indie-level production: \u201cThey couldn\u2019t get their heads around it. I found a way to make it for less money in Serbia, but I don\u2019t think they were into the idea of \u2014 I don\u2019t know. Maybe they just didn\u2019t believe in me. One of their first reactions was, \u2018We don\u2019t believe you\u2019d stay in Serbia more than four days.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Did you read the script?\u2019 My whole life has been survival. I\u2019m not going there for a holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMadonna explained that Netflix<\/a> later connected with her to make a series based on her life and career<\/a>, but the matter was complicated due to the star not being able to use the script from the Universal project. In May 2025, The Hollywood Reporter reported that producer Shawn Levy<\/a> was working with Madonna on developing the limited series.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was in limbo when that fell apart, and then Netflix reached out to make a series,\u201d Madonna said. \u201cThat was a whole other long process, because I couldn\u2019t use the script I had with Universal unless I bought it from them for an extortionist\u2019s price, even though I wrote it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe added, \u201cI started trying to understand how making a series would work. It\u2019s a very, very different process. You have to meet a lot of writers and find the right showrunner, and I couldn\u2019t find one. This went on for another eight or nine months.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTHR previously reported that Universal\u2019s Madonna movie, which was first announced in 2020, was put into turnaround in late 2022<\/a>. Madonna worked on drafts of the script with Diablo Cody and Cressida Wilson, and THR reported that no version ever came in under 180 pages, leading to questions about the film\u2019s potential length. <\/p>\n

\n\tLast year, Garner told the SmartLess podcast<\/a> that the biopic was \u201csupposed to still happen,\u201d with the Emmy-winning actress calling herself \u201csuch a fan of Madonna\u2019s.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps it\u2019s no surprise that Madonna, who proudly boasted of loving the finer things in hit single \u201cMaterial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[33826,93,61,60,111210,664,278,1868,59097,17988],"class_list":["post-513093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-biopic","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-julia-garner","tag-madonna","tag-music","tag-netflix","tag-shawn-levy","tag-universal-pictures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}