Truth or Dare: Is Madonna's Film Career Finished?

Aug. 16, 2006 — -- As Madonna celebrates her 48th birthday, it's high time for a little truth or dare: Are her dreams of being a movie star "Swept Away," or is she still looking for "The Next Big Thing"?

Earlier this month, the star seemed adamant in pronouncing her film career over, even as Billboard Magazine predicted that her current "Confessions" tour -- which grossed $86 million in the United States. -- is on its way to becoming the biggest international tour ever by a female artist.

"I hate to admit it, but I've decided to give that up,'' she told the World Entertainment News Network and an Italian fashion magazine as she continued the European leg of the "Confessions" tour.

"How can any film survive if everyone says it's going to be a flop from the very day the project is even conceived? It's already dead in the water. To continue to try to do films with the knowledge that everyone will just spit on them -- and enjoy doing so -- just doesn't make sense to me any more."

Still, Madonna assured ABC News Radio that she's not quite ready to leave her cinematic aspirations behind, and if she can't make it in front of the camera, she ultimately has plans to direct.

"I would love to do something connected to dancing or to music or dancing, where that was a big part of the story," she said. "I would like it to be an original story that I write, maybe, possibly with somebody."

Of course, Madonna is married to director Guy Ritchie. But their disastrous collaboration, 2002's "Swept Away," became a legendary punching bag for film critics and a punch line for late night comics. It also has the dubious distinction of being the only film to win Razzie Awards as the year's worst movie and worst sequel (believe it or not, that movie was made once before).

The film junkies that bestow the Razzies had earlier named her Worst Actress of the Century for such bombs as "Who's That Girl?" "Body of Evidence" and "Shanghai Surprise."

"You could compare her to Elvis in that her star power never fully translated into movie stardom, and she's begun to embarrass herself," says film historian and pop culture expert Mark Hill, a professor at Temple University. "Her status as an icon is more and more jeopardized with each new movie."