Madonna said her planned biopic collapsed after a budget dispute with Universal Studios.
The failure of the project marks a significant shift in how the music icon intends to tell her life story, moving from a traditional cinematic feature to a streaming format.
Madonna said that the project, which featured actress Julia Garner, fell apart due to financial disagreements with the studio. The singer said that the scale of her personal history required a level of funding that Universal was unwilling to provide. "I've had a huge life, so I needed a big budget," Madonna said [1].
According to the singer, the tension between her vision and the studio's financial constraints led to a breakdown in the partnership. "We had a falling out, me and Universal, regarding budget," she said [2]. This disagreement effectively ended the collaboration on the film project [3].
Industry reports indicate that Julia Garner was attached to play the role of the singer in 2022 [4]. However, the project reached a standstill in January 2023 [5]. The collapse of the movie deal has led Madonna to pivot her focus toward a new medium to document her career and personal evolution.
Madonna is now developing a series about her life for Netflix. This transition allows for a more expansive storytelling format than a two-hour film, potentially accommodating the "huge life" she cited as the reason for the initial budget requirements [1].
The move to Netflix follows a broader trend of high-profile celebrities opting for limited series over biopics to ensure more narrative detail, and creative control.
“"I've had a huge life, so I needed a big budget,"”
The shift from a Universal biopic to a Netflix series reflects a growing industry trend where complex celebrity narratives outgrow the constraints of the theatrical feature film. By moving to a streaming series, Madonna gains more screen time to address her extensive history without the rigid budget caps typically imposed by major studios on single-film productions.
