The singer wanted to shoot her own film about her life, but the launch of her world tour puts this biopic project indefinitely.
Par Marc Fourny
The singer announced her world tour “Celebration Tour” in mid-January.© FRANCK ROBICHON / EPA
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EShe will not be able to be on stage and behind the camera at the same time… The specialized site Variety announces that Madonna’s biopic has purely and simply been shelved. Several sources have indicated that the film which was to retrace the incredible journey of the pop singer was taking “an indefinite vacation”. Nothing has filtered on the exact causes of this stop, but Variety explains that speculation and rumors began as soon as the announcement of the world tour “Celebration Tour”, mid-January, by the singer to celebrate her forty years of career, with more than 70 dates set for the year 2023. An agenda incompatible with the start of a film that she wanted to direct at all costs.
For years, Madonna had been concocting her project, which turned out to be complicated to start. Long on the black list of Hollywood scripts neglected by producers, it was finally Universal Pictures which launched in 2017 by acquiring the rights to the biopic. Entitled Blond Ambitionthe film returns to the epic beginnings of the singer at the dawn of the 1980s, when she tried by all means to release her album in a music industry deemed to be phallocratic.
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After a first halt due to the Covid pandemic, the development of the film restarted in force with several script versions, sometimes reworked by the star herself, determined to film her story herself and not leave anyone behind. dictate it to him. “I had an extraordinary life, I have to make an extraordinary film, explained Madonna to Variety last year. A lot of people tried to make movies about me, especially misogynistic men. So, I put my foot in the door and said, “No one is going to tell my story, except me!” “While acknowledging that getting personally involved was not always easy: “I have a very long script, which is difficult for me to shorten. I tried, but it’s like cutting off my limbs. »
Exhausting auditions
The casting was also up to the challenge: the auditions were exhausting, with intensive dance sessions, script readings and vocal coaching in the presence of Madonna herself, who would have imposed a hellish rhythm on the candidates. Work sessions that sometimes lasted more than ten hours in studios transformed into a training camp… In the end, it was actress Julia Garner, seen in the Netflix series Inventing Anna, who won the title role last June, giving the biopic a big boost. This is to say if the shelving of the film must be heartbreaking for Madonna…
But nothing says that it will not come out one day. We know that the “Material Girl” is the tenacious type, she could very well return to the work once her tour is over, which could involve casting changes, as Julia Garner may no longer be available. In the meantime, at 64, Madonna has lost none of her ardor and desire, boosted as never before by the public’s enthusiasm for her tour – 600,000 tickets sold in just twenty-four hours, dates added all over the world. the world, including a fourth in Paris in November at the Accor Arena. Something to reassure the star about her fame, still intact: “I am the luckiest woman in the world”, she reacted on social networks.