Madonna’s film fell apart because singer wanted ‘grittier’ script: source

At 64, Madonna has never refused a bet.

And the recent video announcement of his “Celebration Tour” is a dirty nod to his 1991 documentary “Truth or Dare.” As Diplo, Eric Andre, Jack Black and others look on, Amy Schumer challenges Madonna to go on a world tour and “play your greatest motherly hits”.

“So the answer is: Fk yeah!” said the singer.

But that means his long-planned biopic, which would star “Ozark” actress Julia Garner, is no longer moving forward with Universal Pictures.

“Madonna will make a movie about her life one day,” a friend of the singer confirmed to Page Six. “But this tour is M’s creative and professional focus right now.”

The ‘Vogue’ icon was going to direct the film herself, but an insider revealed there was a fallout with Universal over the script. “They basically don’t like it,” the insider said of the studio. “They want it to be pop and light. Madonna wants something a lot grittier, and it’s deadlocked.

“She would rather go to another studio than change the script. She still wants to do the movie, but will now see it again after the tour,” the insider said. “She’s keeping the same writers, but is aware that she may have to re-cast if the actors aren’t available.”

During an Instagram Live session in September 2020, Madonna revealed that the film would cover “my struggle as an artist trying to survive in a man’s world as a woman”.

She first teamed up with Oscar-winning Diablo Cody, of “Juno” fame, before replacing her with Erin Wilson, who wrote the screenplays for “Secretary” and “The Girl on the Train.”

Last June, it was reported that ‘Ozark’ star Garner had won the role of the pop icon – following a grueling 16-week singing and dancing boot camp that he would attend Florence Pugh, Alexa Demie, Odessa Young and Bebe Rexha.

This delay won’t slow down the trajectory of Garner, who recently won both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his work on “Ozark.” She has now signed on to film the thriller ‘The Royal Hotel’, which follows two young women backpacking through Australia, as well as the thriller ‘Apartment 7A’.

Representatives for Universal, Madonna, Cody and Garner declined to comment.

Kevin Stea, 53, is one of the few who knows what it takes to work with Madonna. He described the singer as someone who “always tries to push the envelope”.

The choreographer, who danced with Madonna on her ‘Blond Ambition’ tour, hasn’t seen her in 20 years after joining two of her fellow touring dancers, Gabriel Trupin and Oliver Crumes, in a lawsuit over their performance in “Truth or Dare”. They claimed the film failed to pay them in accordance with their contracts and featured behind-the-scenes footage that they were told would not be used. The lawsuit settled in September 1994.

“There was a time when every time I heard his songs and saw his picture, it reminded me of the struggles we were having,” Stea admitted. “But I specifically went to meditate on it and changed it for myself.

“Now when I see her…I see the absolutely positive impact the tour has had on a whole generation of the queer community, and I’m quiet with that.

“But life is quite complicated. She made mistakes. She’s not perfect, she’s hurt people, not everything she does is right – and that’s a state of being human. I am the same. The older I get and the more time passes, the more I realize that she unwaveringly defends her convictions. What she was trying to accomplish really changed the world and produced a space. And you can’t create that space by being nice.

He recounted how he went to see the ‘Madame X’ tour with fellow ‘Blond Ambition’ dancers Carlton Wilborn and Luis Camacho, revealing, “She knew we were there and she was apparently looking for us in the audience, but we didn’t. we didn’t. see each other afterwards, even if we had hoped.

Madonna’s 35-city world tour kicks off in Vancouver on July 15 and dates have been spaced two or three nights apart per city to ensure the star can stay as healthy as possible, sources said. She had canceled some dates of her 2020 “Madame X” tour due to injury, before having to cancel everything due to COVID.

Still, the eternally young pop star may be starting to feel her age. In November 2021, during her “Madame X Presents: Madame Xtra Q&A special for Paramount+”, Madonna admitted to having hip replacement surgery.

“Let me be really honest with you – I was, like, a fitness/workout freak. “You probably know that, don’t you?” … During my [2019 Madame X] tour — I don’t know if you noticed, but I limp a lot — I was in more pain than ever in my life. I am a bionic woman. I had hip replacement surgery,” she said.

“So how can I stay in shape? It’s all in your head… It’s called will, it’s called ‘no one will stop me’. And as I stay in shape, no one will stop me. And how I stay fit is that I don’t believe in limits.

“Any successful choreographer and director will have the dancers doing most of the work around her and always make her feel like she’s doing it all,” Stea said. “Sometimes touring can be an energizing and wonderful thing, [but] it can also really tear you apart physically. Madonna is smart enough to know when to create breaks for herself.

Madonna’s 26-year-old daughter Lourdes, who released her debut single “Lock&Key” last August, is ready to help her mother find dancers, the insider says.

The singer’s other children include Rocco, 22, who is a rising star in the world of visual arts. She also adopted son David, 17, daughter Mercy, 16, and twins Estere and Stella, 10.

Lourdes told her mother’s best friend, Debi Mazar, in Interview magazine that Madonna “is such a control freak, and she’s been controlling me all my life.”

This month, Madonna admitted to Vanity Fair: “Growing up with a mother like me is a challenge. It was the hardest, hardest battle. Today, I still struggle to understand how to be mother and do my job.

Madonna, whose own mother died aged 30 of cancer when she was just five years old, says “a lot of my happiness” comes from her children, adding that she love how “each of them has discovered their own creativity and that it comes from an authentic place.

“I never encouraged my daughter Lola to make music or my son Rocco to paint. But I always exposed them to art, to music, and I’m glad they found ways to express themselves. I have respect and admiration for them and for what they do.

She is currently dating 23-year-old male model Andrew Darnell, as Page Six reported in September, but friends said it was casual and nothing serious.

Stea, meanwhile, hopes to see the tour, saying, “I don’t want anyone to think I don’t like it, I don’t care or I hate it – that’s so far from the truth, I love him so much.

“She’s built a mountain to stand on and I hope she can take in that view and really embrace the impact she’s had in music and culture non-stop for forty years.”