After years of false starts, studio dead-ends, and Instagram frustrations, Madonna’s long-gestating biopic is finally moving forward — but not as a film. The pop icon’s life story will now unfold as a limited series on Netflix, with Ozark star Julia Garner still attached to play the lead. Madonna herself is directing the series and retains co-writing credit, continuing her long-held insistence on full creative control.
Tentatively titled Who’s That Girl — a nod to both her 1987 film and hit single — the project was once in development at Universal. It cycled through writers including Diablo Cody and Erin Cressida Wilson before Madonna took over the script herself. The film version ultimately stalled, but with producer Shawn Levy now overseeing, the project has found a new home (and shape) on the streamer.
The series is expected to chart Madonna’s rise through the male-dominated music industry, exploring the emotional highs and lows of a career defined by reinvention. While details remain scarce — including episode count and whether Levy might direct — the tone is said to be raw, defiant, and wholly Madonna.
Given the singer’s famously uncompromising approach to storytelling and style, this version of Who’s That Girl may be the truest to its name: not a legend remembered, but a woman rediscovered — on her own terms.
