Madonna Biopic Lives (Sort Of): How ‘The Studio’ Season 2 Revives the Axed Movie and Ends the Icon’s 23-Year Acting Break

Home Film News Apr 7, 2026 12:47pm PT Madonna Biopic Lives (Sort Of): How ‘The Studio’ Season 2 Revives the Axed Movie and Ends the Icon’s 23-Year Acting Break By Matt Donnelly Plus Icon Matt Donnelly Chief Correspondent @MattDonnelly Latest Sony Eyes Walter Cronkite Movie, Sets Screenwriter David Rothley to Adapt Biography on Legendary Anchor (EXCLUSIVE) 5 days ago CAA Names Courtney McHugh as Executive in Talent Business Ventures 6 days ago Is Joel McHale Quietly Becoming a Leading Man? 7 days ago See All When a movie is scrapped in the development stage — as countless have been — it’s usually memorialized by an intern sending a script through the shredder. When you’re Madonna, however, you get a Viking funeral with an Apple TV budget. That’s what paparazzi photos from Italy revealed two weeks ago, when the pop icon was captured filming scenes in Venice for the second season of Seth Rogen’s “The Studio.” Madonna’s appearance on the acclaimed series will draw on her recent Hollywood struggles to get a biopic about her own life made. Madonna hasn’t appeared on TV since shooting a cameo on “Will & Grace” in 2003, and she hasn’t starred in a film since 2002’s disastrous remake of “Swept Away.” So it’s no small feat for Rogen to recruit her for “The Studio,” a forensic look at life inside a legacy movie company battling for relevance and survival. It helped, however, that many other moguls and A-listers have been willing to send up their image on the Emmy-winning series. The first season attracted heavyweights like Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron, Zoë Kravitz and Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, all playing themselves. What’s more interesting, according to two sources, is how Rogen’s show will use the real-life circumstances around the singer’s scrapped biopic to illustrate the challenges of modern moviemaking. Madonna will appear in a two-episode arc, the sources add. First, some history. In 2021, Universal Pictures won a multi-studio auction to make a film about Madonna’s life. Amy Pascal was on board to produce, and Madonna would co-write and direct the project. Top actresses, including Florence Pugh, endured a grueling audition process that included a singing and dancing “boot camp.” Julia Garner, the Emmy-winning star of “Inventing Anna” and “Ozark,” won the part in 2022. Insiders say the film would have followed Madonna from her humble beginnings in Michigan through her artistic coming of age in the gritty New York City of the ’80s, leading right up to the 1998 release of “Ray of Light” (an album that brought her a dramatic reinvention and new heights of stardom). Related Stories Jeff Satur on 'Happy Ending,' Studio on Saturn and Finding a Global Audience: 'I Want to Go to as Many Countries as Possible'