Madonna has shelved her upcoming biopic indefinitely and will instead embark on a world tour this year, US-based magazine Variety said Tuesday.

“The anticipated biopic of music legend Madonna is taking an indefinite holiday. The project, which the icon was going to direct herself, is no longer in development at Universal Pictures, multiple sources told Variety,” it reported.

What changed? 

Apparently, Universal is putting the biopic on the backburner as the pop icon conceded to not having the time to begin the project. 

The tour

Last week, the Material Girl announced that she will embark in an ambitious concert tour entitled “Madonna: The Celebration Tour.”’

The 64-year old music icon will tour 36 cities in North America and Europe from July 15 till December 2 this year.

The video announcing the concert showed Madonna on a table with stars Diplo, Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Lil Wayne, Bob The Drag Queen, Kate Berlant, Larry Owens, Meg Stalter, Eric Andre and Amy Schumer.

Later, Schumer dared the global superstar to go on tour and perform her four decades of mega hits. 

https://www.madonna.com/news/title/madonna-announces-the-celebration-tour

Madonna, the best-selling female solo touring artist of all time, “rises to the challenge” announcing The Celebration Tour which will be highlighting her unmatched catalog of music from the past 40 plus years.

The biopic

Everything seemed to be done and dusted with Madonna.

She even took the directing chops and her management team took the helm to produce the movie. Universal Filmed Entertainment group agreed to foot the bill. 

This was two years in the making. 

The project has been in the development stage since 2022 when it was first announced. While there was no title yet, Madonna still managed to draft two scripts covering important moments of her very interesting career and colorful personal life. 

The “Vogue” singer first engaged Oscar winner Diablo Cody and moved on with Erin Cressida Wilson of Girl On The Train fame to write the screenplay.

Julia Garner is Madonna

Casting was already done with a “grueling” sing and dance audition process to play Madonna with a line up of very talented actresses coveting the role. 

This vaunted line up of actresses who were considered to portray the pop legend included the likes of Florence Pugh, Alexa Demie, Odessa Young, Bebe Rexha, and Julia Garner. 

The very talented Garner—-who gained prominence in the last few years because of her role in the Netflix series Ozark—- was chosen with great anticipation from fans. 

With a career that spans four decades, there was so much material to cover including the different iterations the pop star took on to stay relevant. 

The enormity of Madonna’s very eventful personal life and music helped define pop culture as we know it, thus perhaps the tour makes more sense now and allows the music instead to “celebrate” the Queen of Pop’s iconic life.

Madonna’s Celebration tour, which kicks off in New York with stops in Paris, London and other cities have reportedly sold out.