Vince McMahon‘s biopic Pandemonium isn’t going ahead, /Film reports. The film — which was marked as being in pre-production — would chronicle the life and achievements of former WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, one of the biggest names in professional wrestling, who started out commentator for the company before rising the ranks to eventually buy the company from his father in 1982. There’s no figure more prominent in sports entertainment than McMahon, whose contributions to WWE have played a crucial role in launching the company to international status.
We knew McMahon as WWE’s chairman and CEO for 40 years before he retired amidst an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct. He was thereby demoted to executive chairman and majority owner. There’s no denying his influence on the wrestling community, but no one knows his full story. It was back in 2018 that Sony and Tristar Pictures announced their collaboration on a project surrounding Vince McMahon’s life and career. Shortly thereafter, A Star is Born actor Bradley Cooper was in talks to portray McMahon. That being said, Sony and Tristar couldn’t push forward with the project without the businessman’s explicit approval, which they apparently didn’t get.
Through /Film, we can confirm that Pandemonium is dead in the water. John Requa and Glenn Ficarra were attached to direct, but in the years since the film’s announcement, McMahon’s reputation has been tarnished by the aforementioned sexual misconduct allegations. Considering that McMahon is currently seeking out a shot at a redemption arc, even more public attention isn’t exactly the helping hand he’s looking for.
Requa and Ficarra commented on McMahon’s dismissal of Pandemonium. “Pandemonium is dead, sadly,” said Ficarra. And according to John Requa, “Vince killed it.”
“We have never in our career had the studio, we had an actor, everybody was just like, ‘Let’s make this movie,’ and Vince said, ‘We’re not making it.”
Even though McMahon disapproves of the project, filmmakers might be able to twist his arm a little in the future if his public image repairs itself. For now, though, Requa and Ficarra made their thoughts on the whole thing quite clear: “So, yeah, we are on a very long list of people who got f***ed over by Vince.”
