Madonna Biopic ‘Blonde Ambition’ Gets Into the Groove at Universal

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Universal Pictures has opted Elyse Hollander’s screenplay “Blonde Ambition,” based on the megastar’s initial rise from club kid to her eponymous first album. No word yet on if the rights to any of Madonna’s early music has or will be secured for the biopic but the singer is notoriously guarded about music use and denied all use for a previous attempt (the Fox TV movie “Innocence Lost”) at her rise to fame story.

Hollander’s screenplay topped the 2016 Blacklist, the annual list of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood based on the over 250 executives who voted. It is her first script sale.

“Blonde Ambition” lands at the feet of Brett Ratner’s Ratpac and Michael De Luca and Bellevue Productions’ John Zaozirny. Erik Baiers and Chloe Yellin will oversee production for Universal. Lucy Kitada will oversee for De Luca Productions and John Cheng will oversee for Ratpac.

No casting has been announced at this time but this will probably be one of the year’s most high-profile roles and all eyes will be on who gets to star as the Queen of Pop. The project’s time period will be Madonna’s early days in New York City trying to get her demo produced (and performing at Danceteria, to be sure) and navigating the music industry, fame and romance at the time.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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