How Vince McMahon Killed the "Pandamonium" Biopic Starring Bradley Cooper
Vince McMahon "killed" a rumored biopic about his life, according to the two directors initially attached to the film. Reports started popping up back in 2017 that Bradley Cooper had been cast in a Tristar Studios biopic titled Pandamonium, which centered around McMahon's life and would've had John Requa and Glenn Ficarra as directors. The movie was supposedly going to release in 2018 but news about the project quickly dried up a year later after a new draft of the script was sent to WWE executives for feedback. By 2020 the film appeared to be dead as WWE was moving on to a deal with Netflix for a multi-part docuseries on McMahon. That project is still in development.
But as for Pandamonim, Reqae and Ficarra explained what happened in a new interview with SlashFilm. Ficarra said "Pandemonium is dead, sadly," while Requea noted, "Vince killed it." They then discussed how McMahon blocked the production from moving forward.
"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,'" Requa continued. "So, yeah, we are on a very long list of people who got f—e over by Vince."
McMahon "retired" from WWE last July as The Wall Street Journal continued to publish reports of him allegedly covering up various sexual misconduct allegations by paying millions in non-disclosure agreements to women both in and out of WWE. This caught the attention of both the SEC and federal prosecutors, and upon McMahon's departure, Stephanie McMahon and Nick Khan became the Co-CEOs of the company while Paul "Triple H" Levesque took over McMahon's booking role as the Chief Content Officer. But mere months later there were already rumors that McMahon was looking to make a comeback to the company, believing he was given bad legal advice to step down.
He finally put a plan into action in December, demanding that WWE reinstate him to the Board of Directors as its executive chairman so he can spearhead negotiations for a sale of the company. The WWE Board initially declined, prompting McMahon to threaten to use the voting power (reportedly just over 80%) he still has through his Class B stock ownership to block any potential sale or future media rights deals. McMahon was reinstated in early January and WWE's sales talks are still ongoing.