Madonna Reveals The 'Falling Out' That Caused Her Biopic With Julia Garner To 'Fall Apart'

Madonna is giving all the details about what caused her self-directed biopic starring Julia Garner to get shelved. “I was supposed to make a movie about my life,” the pop icon told Interview Magazine ‘s editor-in-chief Mel Ottenberg in a June 22 feature. “I worked on my script for two years and spent two years at Universal Studios with the line producers doing budgeting and casting.” Related story Insiders Allege Madonna’s Cold Response to A-Rod Resurfacing Those Affair Rumors: ‘It Was Forgettable' In 2022, the project, which was a collaboration with Universal Studios, had officially cast Inventing Anna star Garner as the star. However, reports confirmed to Variety in 2023 that the whole movie had been scrapped. “We had a falling out, me and Universal, regarding budget because I needed—I’ve had an extraordinary life. I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget,” Madonna said in the recent chat with Ottenberg, adding that no movie about her life could be “an indie film.” “They couldn’t get their heads around it,” Madonna said. As a solution, the “Material Girl” singer researched how to produce the movie in Serbia and significantly reduce the budget. Sadly, however, the alternative didn’t stick. “Maybe they just didn’t believe in me,” she said. “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?’ My whole life has been survival. I’m not going there for a holiday.” The falling out, of course, was a major setback for the singer. “I was in limbo when that fell apart,” she said, before adding that Netflix soon reached out about making a biopic series instead. RELATED: Madonna Praises Daughter Mercy’s ‘Radiant Light’ in the Sweetest New Video for Her 20th Birthday “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,” she said. With Netflix, Madonna had to essentially start from scratch. “It’s a very, very different process,” she said. “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. 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.'” As of May 2025, per Deadline , Madonna has teamed up with Netflix and Shawn Levy for a limited series about her life. RELATED: Madonna Attended ‘A Truly Sacred Ritual’ With Daughters Mercy & Lourdes in a Rare New Video