Madonna’s Biopic Reportedly Cost Universal Pictures More Than $10 Million Before They Shelved It
As we know, 64-year-old pop Queen Madonna is going to embark on a tour to celebrate her 40-year music career. Since her Celebration tour begins this July and goes through to December, I’m just hoping that her knee can make it to even September, as her Madame X tour in 2020 had her canceling shows due to “overwhelming pain.” Do you know who else feels that overwhelming pain Madonna went through? Universal Pictures, the studio behind the Madonna-directed Madonna biopic that was shit-canned after her tour was announced. Sources say that Universal knew they were gonna shelf the movie before the tour because it’s been costing them millions and nothing has even happened yet. It looks like the Madonna biopic is already a money-hole, and it didn’t even come out. At least Amsterdam tanked after it got released.
The Madonna biopic was drama from the get-go, which costs money in Hollywood. Madonna and Diablo Cody first wrote the movie’s script, but Diablo left the project. Erin Cressida Wilson took over. Then there was the ridiculous boot camp Madonna reportedly put these actresses through that included 11-hour dance sessions like they were working out to fight blood-thirsty demons rather than play one. Just kidding! Madonna is probably super friendly and kind. Ozark‘s Julia Garner ended up surviving the boot camp and getting the role, but hot names like Florence Pugh, Sydney Sweeney, and Alexa Demie also reportedly tried out.
All those tryouts and rewrites cost money, and The Sun spoke to sources who say that it got to be ten million before a final script was ever produced.
A well-placed Tinseltown source told The U.S. Sun that the whole development process has likely already cost Universal between $10 million and $12 million.
It means that if another studio wants to pick the movie up, they would have to reimburse Universal for their expenses just to have the right to start again from square one, the insider said.
The source explained: “They started spending money on this project back in 2020, which included millions for Madonna and her manager Guy Oseary to license the rights to Madonna’s story and her music, plus millions were spent on writing and directing fees for Madonna and Diablo Cody’s top-of-class writing fee as a former Oscar winner… When you spend millions and millions on a project without a final script, there’s going to be a gut-check moment, and that’s what happened here.”
Madonna’s online antics (see: naked under beds, missing eyebrows on TikTok, etc.) also reportedly put off Universal execs, but I don’t believe that. Sources add that her need to have “near-total” control of the movie and the exorbitant costs got to be too much. But Madonna is an ARTISTE™, and sources say she is not doing this for the money:
“There is no doubt that Madonna is going to make more money on her Celebration tour than she would have if she had spent 2023 making the Madonna movie…
This was never about money and Madonna has made more cash in her career than she knows what to do with…
Making this movie was a chance to finally prove herself as a filmmaker and an artist outside of the songs and music videos she’s known for…
Remember, she has been married to two film directors, Sean Penn and Guy Ritchie, and she wanted to show the world that she really learned something from the experience of watching those guys put their directing careers together.”
Page Six’s sources also claim that Universal wanted the movie to be “pop and light” fluff, but Madonna wanted something “grittier.”
I love how this source said: “Madonna’s not doing this for the money, but she is about to make even MORE of it.” We get it, Madonna is rich. So she should fund the whole movie herself–maybe that’s what the tour is about? At the end of this, she’s going to announce her self-written, self-directed, self-funded biopic also starring her, and she’s going to use the de-aging deep fake technology Robert DeNiro got in The Irishman to pull it off.
Pic: Instagram