Madonna reveals how a ‘falling out’ caused biopic starring Julia Garner to be scrapped

Madonna revealed her planned biopic was scrapped because she had a “falling out” with Universal Studios over the budget.

“I was supposed to make a movie about my life. I worked on my script for two years and spent two years at Universal Studios with the line producers doing budgeting and casting,” she told Interview magazine editor-in-chief Mel Ottenberg in a cover story published Monday.

Madonna explained she “needed a big budget” so the film could portray her “extraordinary life,” but Universal “couldn’t get their heads” around that and wouldn’t cough up more money.

However, the 67-year-old — who was set to direct the movie and be portrayed by “Ozark” star Julia Garner — said she found a way to make the biopic for less money in Serbia — but that didn’t go over well with Universal.

“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 “Material Girl” singer said she “was in limbo” when the biopic plans fell apart, but there was a glimmer of hope when Netflix reached out about making a limited series based on her life.

Unfortunately, Madonna couldn’t use the script she wrote for Universal unless she “bought it from them for an extortionist’s price.”

“That’s just the way it goes,” she shared. “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.”

Madonna said another eight or nine months passed before the plans for the Netflix series fell apart, at which point she decided to focus on her music career instead.

“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,'” she stated.

Page Six has reached out to Universal for comment.

The Madonna biopic cast Garner, 32, in the lead role in 2022 after a grueling singing and dancing bootcamp battle against other actresses.

Two years later, Madonna spoke out against Hollywood producers who were allegedly telling her to scale down the project, declaring she wouldn’t make herself “smaller.”

After the film was scrapped, a friend of Madonna’s told Page Six she wanted a “grittier” script, while Universal preferred it to be “pop and light,” which led to a “stalemate.”

The insider claimed will make the biopic “someday,” but she’s “aware that she might have to recast if the actors aren’t available.”

In April, Madonna and Garner filmed scenes for Apple TV’s “The Studio” Season 2 that poked fun at the canceled biopic. They were seen recreating the 1984 “Like a Virgin” music video on a gondola in Venice.

For now, Madonna is focused on her upcoming 15th studio album, “Confessions II,” which comes out July 3. Her last album, “Madame X,” was released seven years ago.

In the Interview magazine story, Madonna said she made the album when she was dealing with a lot in her personal life, including the deaths of her brother, Christopher Ciccone, and her stepmother, Joan Ciccone, whom Madonna said she “had a very traumatic relationship throughout my entire childhood.”

“I came back and forth a couple of times and then I said, ‘OK, this is right. This feels good. So unless Netflix is going to call me tomorrow with a writer I like, I’m going to start going down this road,'” Madonna said.

“Of course, in the middle of the process, more than like 75 percent of the way through, we found the writer and I was like, ‘I can’t turn back now. I have to move this up a bit,'” she added. “So that’s what I did.”

Madonna also said she feels that the tragic life events that inspired her album are like the script of her scrapped film.

“It begins with death and it ends with death, but there’s all this life in between,” she shared.

“Paradoxical subjects, obviously, but death is a part of life. It just felt like I had a lot to get off my chest.”