Fans of Madonna were shocked to learn on January 24 that her highly-anticipated biopic, which she had initially set out to direct herself, had been placed on an indefinite hiatus.
Not only because the upcoming movie – which was in development at Universal Studios – had already cast Ozark's Julia Garner to portray the Queen of Pop, but because of how hard it had been to decide on a lead actress in the first place.
Since news of the project had been scrapped, first shared by Variety, multiple outlets have made note of what a gruesome ordeal the audition process had been, now seemingly pointless.
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Variety said that Julia's casting, which was announced in June of 2022, came after "a grueling weeks-long bake-off," between some of the aspiring Madonnas.
Some of the contenders included Don't Worry Darling's Florence Pugh, Euphoria's Alexa Demie, Australian actress Odessa Young, and singer Bebe Rexha.
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To prove themselves as the perfect Like a Virgin singer, Variety reports that they had to attend singing and dancing bootcamp, which The Guardian reports were up to eleven hours of grueling practice with Madonna's own choreographer.
© Photo: Getty ImagesJulia previously portrayed con-artist Anna Delvey in Inventing Anna
Not only was the bootcamp-style audition process long, but the writing and script planning – Madonna was both director and co-writer – had also been yet another time-consuming and gruesome aspect of the project, with The Hollywood Reporter previously reporting that the scripts turned in had been extraordinarily long.
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News of the cancellation came days after the Desperately Seeking Susan actress announced a new, entirely different project, revealing that she was embarking on a world tour.
Fans will at least get to see the singer back on stage
Titled The Celebration Tour and produced by Live Nation, the 35-city global tour will kick off in Vancouver on January 15th, ending in Amsterdam on December 1st, and per the tour website, aims to be a retrospective of her musical oeuvre.
Her last tour, Madame X, ran from September 2019 to March 2020.
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