Background
Madonna's 1985 comedy film Desperately Seeking Susan was a commercial success, prompting her to take further interest in acting. For her next screen project, she picked another comedy, initially titled Slammer, but later named Who's That Girl. Madonna played the character of Nikki Finn, a young woman accused of homicide who insisted that she was innocent. Released on parole, she was determined to clear her name. Along with a character named Loudon Trott (played by Griffin Dunne), she gets caught up in 36 hours of high adventure, culminating in a scene where Nikki interrupts a wedding to reveal the identity of the real murderer. Regarding the character Nikki, Madonna commented,
"I had a lot in common with Nikki. She's courageous and sweet and funny and misjudged. But she clears her name in the end, and that's always good to do. I'm continuously doing that with the public. I liked Nikki's tough side and her sweet side. The toughness is only a mask for the vulnerability she feels inside."
However, in the light of the bad publicity surrounding Madonna and her then husband Sean Penn, coupled with the fact that their drama film Shanghai Surprise had failed commercially, she had to fight hard to persuade Warner Bros. to green light the project. She also wanted her close friend James Foley to direct the film, proclaiming him to be a "genius". Foley had previously directed the music videos of her songs "Live to Tell", "Papa Don't Preach" and "True Blue". Warner Bros. were looking for another way to cash in upon Madonna's success with soundtracks, and felt that her name alone might be enough to guarantee the success of the film as well as its soundtrack. So they felt that they had no choice, but to green light the project. Filming began in October 1986, in New York, but it was not until January that Madonna started working on the soundtrack.
Read more about this topic: Who's That Girl (soundtrack)
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