Madonna reveals why her biopic was scrapped with Universal

Madonna is Interview magazine’s latest cover girl for its Summer 2026 issue.

In the one-on-one with Mel Ottenberg, the “Material Girl” revealed she had a “falling out” with Universal Studios regarding the budget needed to tell the story of the superstar’s “extraordinary life.”

“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. We had a falling out, me and Universal, regarding budget because I needed—I’ve had an extraordinary life,” she reasoned. “I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget. You know what I mean? It’s not going be a—.”

Ottenberg then finished her sentence, saying, “an Indie film.”

“No,” to which the “Vogue” singer replied. “They couldn’t get their heads around it. I found a way to make it for less money in Serbia, but I don’t think they were into the idea of—I don’t know. Maybe they just didn’t believe in me. 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.”

She explained that she was “in limbo” when the film fell apart, and that’s when Netflix reached out to her about making a series.

“That was a whole other long process, because I couldn’t use the script I had with Universal unless I bought it from them for an extortionist’s price, even though I wrote it. Don’t ask,” the “Evita” actress explained.

In 2021, Universal won the bid to make the movie about Madge’s life. Following a “boot camp” style of auditions, Julie Garner of “Ozark” fame won the role. The “Frozen” singer was set to co-write the project and Amy Pascal was set to produce, according to Variety.

The film would follow the singer’s life from her upbringing in Michigan to her big break in the ’80s up until her 1998 album “Ray of Light.”

Garner is not tied to the Netflix project.

From there, the seven-time Grammy award winner started looking into how 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. This went on for another eight or nine months. 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.'”

That work led her to her upcoming album “Confessions on a Dancefloor: Part II.” The project is a sequel to her 2005 album “Confessions on a Dancefloor.”

She was then inspired to reach out to English electronic musician and DJ, Stuart Price, because she “thought the world is in a very dark place and people need to dance.”

“I hadn’t worked with Stuart for a long time. We’d just done the Celebration Tour together, but besides that, I didn’t really see or speak to him for probably 15 years. I was living in New York and I reached out to him, thinking, ‘What if we tried to make ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II,’ and reenter the world of inspirational dance music?’ So I came to London and went to his studio, and we were just playing around to see if there was magic between us,” she revealed.

Madonna herself needed to dance.

“I had a lot of stuff going on in my life personally. My brother was very, very, very ill, and my stepmother, with whom I’d had a very traumatic relationship throughout my entire childhood, had just died.”

The new album is set to be released on July 3.

Madonna and Garner’s partnership isn’t over.

They’ll play themselves working on a fictional biopic of the singer’s life in Season 2 of Apple TV’s “The Studio.” Art will indeed imitate life as the appearance will be about Madonna’s struggle to get the project made.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.