Highlights
- Madonna says a budget dispute with Universal killed her self-directed biopic starring Julia Garner
- Universal allegedly blocked her from using her own script unless she paid an “extortionist’s price”
- A Netflix limited series with Shawn Levy is now in early development as a replacement
Madonna is setting the record straight — and she’s not holding back.
The Queen of Pop, 67, opened up in a candid new cover story for Interview magazine, marking her 11th appearance on the cover, the most in the magazine’s history, to finally explain why her long-gestating biopic never made it to the screen.
The star spent years developing the film, which she planned to co-write and direct herself, with Emmy-winning actress Julia Garner attached to portray the music legend.
The short answer? Money — and a studio that, in Madonna’s telling, simply didn’t believe in her vision.
“I was supposed to make a movie about my life,” Madonna told the publication. “I 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 — I’ve had an extraordinary life.”
She didn’t stop there.
“I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget. You know what I mean?”
The biopic, tentatively titled Who’s That Girl, had Universal winning a multi-studio auction in 2020 to produce the film, with Madonna intent on telling her own story after several unauthorized attempts had been made to bring her life to the screen. Oscar-winning Juno writer Diablo Cody worked with the pop icon on an early draft before departing, and Secretary screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson later joined the project, with Madonna ultimately completing the screenplay herself.
Madonna said she even found a potential solution to the budget impasse — one Universal shot down almost immediately.
“I found a way to make it for less money in Serbia, but I don’t think they were into the idea… maybe they just didn’t believe in me. One of their first reactions was, ‘We don’t believe you’d stay in Serbia more than four days.’ And I said, ‘Did you read the script?'”
She was blunt about what the biopic demanded thematically.
“My whole life has been survival. I’m not going there for a holiday.”
With Universal out of the picture, Netflix stepped in — but the transition was anything but smooth. “I was in limbo when that fell apart, and then Netflix reached out to make a series,” Madonna said. “That was a whole other long process, because I couldn’t use the script I had with Universal unless I bought it from them for an extortionist’s price, even though I wrote it.”
The pivot from film to limited series introduced an entirely new set of obstacles.
“I started trying to understand how making a series would work. It’s a very, very different process. You have to meet a lot of writers and find the right showrunner, and I couldn’t find one. This went on for another eight or nine months,” she said.
She described the extended creative limbo by saying, “I was like, ‘Good thing I have another job because I need to work, I need to create. I need to do what I was put on this earth to do.'”
That creative restlessness appears to have produced something. Madonna confirmed that her upcoming album Confessions II emerged directly from the frustration of having her biopic repeatedly stalled.
As for the Netflix series, reports emerged in May 2025 that Madonna had teamed up with Deadpool & Wolverine filmmaker Shawn Levy to develop a limited series for the streamer, though the project remains in early development. Garner is not attached to the Netflix version.
The abandoned Universal biopic isn’t entirely dead in the cultural imagination, however. Madonna and Garner filmed episodes last year at the Venice Film Festival for Season 2 of Seth Rogen‘s Emmy-winning Apple comedy series The Studio, where one story arc features a Madonna biopic starring Garner heading to Venice for its world premiere.
Whether the real-life version ever reaches screens — in any form — remains an open question. But after four-plus years of development, rewrites, studio disputes, and creative dead ends, Madonna sounds like someone who refuses to let the story end on someone else’s terms.
“That’s just the way it goes,” she said. “Don’t ask.”
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