Madonna fans have one thing to say after biopic is scrapped: ‘Release the bootcamp footage’
Madonna biopic starring Julia Garner scrapped as music legend kicks off global tour. (Getty)
The Madonna biopic starring Julia Garner has been shelved by Universal Pictures as the Queen of Pop prepares to go on her world tour.
According to Variety, the highly anticipated film, which was set to be directed by the singer herself and star the Ozark actor Julia Garner, is no longer in development.
Chronicling the pop legend’s extraordinary life and four-decade career, the news comes in the wake of Madonna’s recent announcement that she will embark on an epic world tour.
When the film was first announced in 2020, Madonna said: “I want to convey the incredible journey that life has taken me on as an artist, a musician, a dancer — a human being, trying to make her way in this world.”
However, as one source told The Hollywood Reporter following the cancellation news: “You have 40 years of success, and it’s very hard to put that into one movie.”
Development on the film has been turbulent over the past few years, going through various script drafts with writers Diablo Cody and Erin Cressida Wilson.
While news of the biopic’s demise has just broken, the fate of the film had reportedly already been decided late last year, long before the tour was announced.
Per Variety, inside sources report that while Madonna’s focus is currently on the tour, she very much intends to make her biopic happen one day.
The film made headlines last year when Madonna hopefuls were put under a “gruelling” bootcamp to find the perfect actor.
Big name stars such as Florence Pugh, Emma Laird, Alexa Demie and even her own daughter Lourdes Leon undertook physically and emotionally intensive 11-hour days of training, before Inventing Anna‘s Julia Garner “emerged as the favourite” and scored the role.
Now the project is dead, fans are joking that the next best prize would be releasing unseen footage from the chaotic bootcamp.
“Now they’ve scrapped the biopic Gruelling Madonna Bootcamp documentary MUST HAPPEN!” one fan joked.
Other fans are taking solace in all the other ways Madonna has been immortalised on screen, from Evan Rachel Wood playing the iconic parody version of her in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story to the 1994 Madonna: Innocence Lost.
As one fan wrote: “I have to assume that once Madonna saw Weird: The Al Yankovic Story she realised her biography had already been told so thoroughly and accurately that another biopic would have just been redundant.”
Many fans are glad, however, that she is prioritising the world tour.
Madonna’s Celebration Tour kicks off on 15 July in Vancouver. Tickets are available here.
