Not all projects are meant to work out, but it's a terrible feeling when they fail because of something like a budget.
While talking with Interview magazine, Madonna opened up about how her biopic, which she'd already spent the past two years writing and developing, and Ozark's Julia Garner was rumored to portray her, was canceled for budgetary reasons.
Madonna reflected:
“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. I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget. You know what I mean?"
"[I tried to find] a way to make it for less money in Serbia. 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."
"But anyway, I was in limbo when that fell apart, and then Netflix reached out to make 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.”
Some fans were glad that Madonna knew her worth and didn't settle for less.
But knowing that Madonna is worth $850 million dollars, others challenged her to fund her vision herself.
So far, Madonna has spent two years writing and developing her story with Universal Studios, and then she attempted to work out the project as a series with Netflix.
There's no telling if she'll decide to purchase the rights to the script that she wrote with Universal to move forward with the series with Netflix. Perhaps there's even another path that she could take.
But knowing Madonna, she'll find a way to work through this and get her story told.
