Julia Garner admits that there’s little to report on the Madonna biopic, but she seems to remain involved in the project. More here.
The planned biopic of Madonna has been a project doing the rounds for the best part of a decade now, with the star herself very, very much involved. Madonna was due to return to directing to helm the film, and Diablo Cody had at one stage penned a screenplay with Cressida Wilson.
In fact, it got to the point where Universal Pictures was on board, before backing out in 2023, even as Julia Garner was announced as taking on the lead role.
That didn’t derail the biopic altogether though, with Madonna continue to develop the script, which in the end sounded like it had outgrown a movie. As such, by 2025, this was now a Netflix TV series, that she was working on with Shawn Levy.
Garner remains attached too, although as you’ll have spotted, we’re at the end of 2026 now, and there’s little sign of any progress. Chatting to CBS, she admitted too that she doesn’t quite know what’s going on, and that “every hour it changes.”
“I would love for the movie to get made, obviously. But I also feel whatever happens, like, I made a great friend. I love Madonna. I think she’s incredible”, she added. But also conceded that in the scheme of things, she’s got no sway over the project’s development. “It’s not up to me”, she noted.
The takeaway here is that, whatever shape the Madonna biopic is in, it’s still not dead and – paradoxically – it doesn’t appear to be alive either. That Garner could have nixed her involvement there and then, and didn’t. Presumably, Netflix still holds the cards for a narrative miniseries as things stand. Although surely given the numbers music biopics have done this year, the feature film conversation will be had again soon.
More as we hear it. Just lord knows when that’ll be.