Why Hulk Hogan’s Biopic Was Cancelled & Could It Happen After His Death?

Pro-wrestling legend Hulk Hogan has recently passed away at the age of 71, and that raises the question of whether a biopic about his life and its controversies might be produced. Born Terry Gene Bollea, Hulk Hogan was quite possibly the definitive face of professional wrestling in his lifetime, with Hogan’s pro-wrestling career spanning from the late ’70s all the way into early 2025. Hogan also expanded his career into movies and television, with Hogan’s career highlights including his battle with the Italian Stallion in Rocky III and headlining the silly 1991 sci-fi comedy Suburban Commando. Hogan’s impact on pro-wrestling was such that a Netflix biopic about his life and career was even in the works at one point, with Chris Hemsworth attached to portray the pro-wrestling giant. However, the project was never realized due to some complex behind-the-scenes issues.

In the aftermath of Hulk Hogan’s passing, the topic of his life and the potential of a biopic about him is one of both interest and controversy, the latter owing to Hogan’s infamous history of racism that came to light in the latter years of his career. While Hulk Hogan undoubtedly had a larger than life pro-wrestling career and life story, that controversy also makes it a much bigger question mark as to whether the Hulk Hogan biopic might ever become a reality.

Why Was the Hulk Hogan Biopic Originally Cancelled?

The reasoning behind the Hulk Hogan biopic’s cancellation was originally revealed by Hogan himself in a 2024 interview on the PBD podcast. Per Hulk Hogan, the film ran into a financial issue when “They kind of missed a beat in the contract” and that “there was a payment that wasn’t placed at the right time”. While the reasoning is still a bit vague for those not in the loop on Hollywood accounting, it seems that money and contract issues went hand in hand in the project’s cancellation.

Hogan himself praised Scott Silver’s script in the same interview, calling it “amazing”, with the movie to have chronicled Hogan’s career and life story to the point of Hogan’s departure from the WWE for WCW. In the aftermath of Hulk Hogan’s passing, there is likely to be speculation of a biopic’s potential for it to cover the entirety of his life. However, Hogan’s later years also complicate the possibility of his life story being made into a movie.

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Hulk Hogan’s Racism Controversy Makes Revisiting His Biopic More Complicated

Hulk Hogan’s pro-wrestling career brought a number of controversies with it, and by far the biggest was the 2015 revelation of racist remarks. In 2015, recordings of Hogan going on a racist tirade against black people were released by Radar Online and the National Enquirer. Though Hogan issued an apology, the revelation ultimately led to a three-year ban from the WWE. While Hogan was ultimately re-instated in 2018, the fallout followed him for the rest of his career, with fans even booing Hogan at Netflix’s WWE Raw.

With such an unsettling incident as a part of his public profile and one that significantly damaged Hogan’s public image in the last decade of his life, any biopic would be in a very difficult position in approaching that part of his story. The impact is far too big an aspect of his public life for a Hulk Hogan biopic to overlook. By the same token, a movie on Hulk Hogan’s life story would face the accusation of sweeping the matter under the rug if it covered Hogan’s racist comments from a casual or non-condemnatory angle. All of that greatly complicates any consideration of reviving the Hulk Hogan biopic after his passing.

Will the Hulk Hogan Biopic Ever Be Realized?

While Hogan faced widespread backlash, other big stars have managed comebacks after similar public downfalls. Mel Gibson is perhaps the most well-known example, with Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant during a 2006 DUI arrest and subsequent charges in 2010 greatly damaging his public image. Nonetheless, Gibson worked his way back to the top of Hollywood’s A-list with the support of colleagues and friends like Jodie Foster and Robert Downey Jr., with Gibson even earning an Oscar nomination for Best Director for 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge, and Gibson also directing the upcoming The Resurrection of the Christ, the long in-development sequel to 2004’s The Passion of the Christ.

With all of that said, Gibson’s comeback also took a decade to pull off, with the controversy still heavily looming over Gibson’s public image to this day. It isn’t unreasonable to think that a posthumous Hulk Hogan biopic would probably face a similar timeframe before it could be approached, and even then, it would undoubtedly still be a hot potato with speculation over how the movie would handle the issue of Hogan’s racism surely dominating much of the public discourse around it. Ultimately, while the topic of Hulk Hogan’s life story and impact on the world of pro-wrestling is on the minds of many after his passing, the Hulk Hogan biopic, should it be greenlit once more, probably will need a decade or so before it could be greenlit in light of the biggest controversy in Hulk Hogan’s public life.