The director of the upcoming Mildred Burke biopic Queen of the Ring has detailed the process of initially casting Charlotte Flair for the film and how the WWE star was abruptly pulled from the project at the last second.
Back in July 2023, news broke that Charlotte Flair lost the opportunity to be a part of the movie based on the legendary women’s wrestler Mildred Burke after WWE got involved. The report at the time noted that Flair was set to play the role of lead villain June Byers, who will now be played by AEW wrestler Kamille in the film. It was also reported that Liv Morgan was set to star in the film as Clara Mortensen, who is now played by AEW wrestler Toni Storm.
During an interview with Jim Cornette, who also stars in the movie as the NWA Commissioner, director Ash Avildsen recalled the roadblocks that he was hit with during the making of the movie. Beginning the recollection, Avildsen noted that he did not consider WWE talent at first but was the promotion reached out and suggested Charlotte Flair and Liv Morgan for 2 of the roles:
“Every which way there were roadblocks. I’ll lead that into the WWE of it all. So when we send out the breakdown for cast to the industry, which is basically there’s a go-movie, which means this movie is getting made. They’re starting to cast. It’s no longer a pitch, it’s not trying to be put together, they’re casting. We put out the breakdown so all the agents and managers go oh look, they’re trying to fill this role and that role.
Two of those roles were June Byers and Clara Mortensen. So my agent at CAA gets hit up and says, ‘Hey the WWE reached out. They’re interested in talking about the movie and getting some of their talent in it.’ I purposely never went to the WWE for casting because I just know all of the yellow tape and red tape to get any of their talent, so I just didn’t even want to open up Pandora’s box. But they say ‘No, take the meeting with them.’
It was the head of scripted entertainment there, or scripted Film Television, who is no longer there after the TKO deal. But he was there for many years, lovely guy. He goes, ‘We love the script. I want you to meet with two other execs.’
I go out to Century City, I meet with these two other gentlemen, lovely guys. All these people were great. ‘We love the script. We want to support. We’re going to send it to Charlotte Flair and Liv Morgan. Will you do Zooms with them?’ I go, ‘Of course, they’re two of the best in the world right now, I would love to.’ Nothing but love and grace and respect to Charlotte and Liv.
I get on Zooms, each one of them separately, and I have now gone, you know what? Maybe I will cast some WWE stars. I’ve always wanted those two roles to be real wrestlers, just because the amount of stunts that are going to happen. I wanted Clara and June to be people that could do their own stunts and that knew the art of pro wrestling. So they were always going to be stunt casted, no pun intended, but I wanted to make sure that they were the right people to play those roles.
So I do this Zoom with Charlotte. She’s fantastic. Then I do a Zoom with Liv, and funny enough, I don’t know if she’s said this a lot before, but I’ll share it because it’s a great story. I asked Liv how she got into wrestling, and she said she was working at a Hooters as a waitress and a wrestler came in. She recognized him and she was a fan, and basically said, Hey, you gotta let me get a try-out, which is so serendipitous.”
WWE Removes Charlotte Flair From Queen of the Ring
Cornette noted that Morgan’s start in pro wrestling was very similar to that of Mildred Burke, to which Avildsen agreed. Continuing, the director then recalled having Flair in Louisville to shoot some of the scenes before being contacted by WWE, informing them that Flair was pulled from the production. While Avildsen never got a clear answer as to why, he did note that he believed Vince McMahon was frustrated that Seth Rollins was away filming scenes for the 4th Captain America movie:
I go, ‘Holy sh*t. This is literally our story!’ […] She was a waitress, a wrestler comes in, give me a try-out, just like Mildred’s story. Then Charlotte had just responded to the screenplay. She’s like, this is so real. This is how it is. So we casted both of them.
Charlotte comes out to Louisville, and she’s training with us. She’s already been sized with wardrobe. She’s at OVW. She’s training Emily [Bett Rickards, who plays Mildred Burke]. She was so amazing. She’s just so committed, so excited and I’m thrilled because I’m like, wow, Charlotte Flair is going to be our main villain. She’s just one of the best in the world, one of the best of all time.
Then days before we start shooting, not even weeks, literally days, less than a week, my producers can’t get the paperwork signed from WWE. We’re still waiting for Liv to arrive, but Charlotte is already there. Then all of a sudden becomes this game of ambiguity where ‘Oh, she’s being pulled.’ What do you mean? ‘Well they won’t let her sign.’ Well, who’s saying that? You guys are the ones that pitched me to cast them.
I keep asking the people at WWE in the film department. To cut to the chase, no one can give me a very clear, honest answer other than they believe it came from the very top, which would been Vince at the time, and that he was mad about another wrestler, who I believe maybe this was Seth Rollins shooting Captain America, which unfortunately, I think his scene got cut anyway.
But he was mad that some of their talent wasn’t shooting all their TV episodes because they were out doing movies and he was like if it’s an independent film, we’re not messing with it. The punch line was they pulled Charlotte out of it because it was an indie film and they didn’t want her. I don’t know if it was wasting her time or jeopardizing her time, or her storyline. I don’t know what it was.”
In conclusion, Avildsen added that they do have cutting-room floor footage of Flair training Emily Bett Rickards for the movie, which may one day see the light of day. Avildsen also recalled a second time when WWE got in contact again following the TKO sale to attempt to promote the movie, which also fell through:
“By the way, we have all these great videos. Unless Hunter if you’re out there, or Nick Khan, if somebody wants to call me and tell me what’s up. But we’ll probably just put them out there because they’re great footage of Charlotte training Emily and how much the movie means to her and how excited [she was]. The whole thing is just sad and tragic in the sense that they pulled her and it was so elusive.
Again, I’m not trying to sit here and shame the WWE. I love the company. It’s a huge reason why this movie got made in the sense that it inspired me as a kid growing up and watching it. But the whole way it was handled was f*cked up. Then, by the way, here’s part two to this story.
So then TKO, they sell. Then we start getting good feedback in the film festival circuit. Then a guy from TKO who’s somewhat newer there but a really, lovely guy. Digital sponsorships, brand partnerships. They approach us, ‘Hey, we want to help promote this movie. We want to get involved.’ I go, really? By the way, I have the receipts. I have all the emails, phone calls, texts.
Now they’re coming to us again. ‘Hey, we want to do this. We want to do that.’ I go, great. I would love to have WWE help promote this. You guys have the target audience. Can we do something in between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania when it’s coming out? I can get some of the P and A money, which is the promotional marketing, advertising dollars to promote a theatrical release.
I go, ‘We’ll pay you what you’re asking to help promote this.’ Great. This is going to be great. Alright, we have this whole thing coming together. I’m going to go get the long form. Two days go by, the guy didn’t call me back. I go f*ck, this is the first time I’ve never had someone not want to take my money. Why isn’t this guy calling me?
Two more days go by. ‘Hey, I’m really embarrassed. I don’t know what to say.’ This went up to the top. They said, ‘Oh yeah, we can’t be involved in that movie.’ This is post-TKO. So the first time the casting was pre-TKO. Second time post-TKO, they come to me again. This is not to stir up drama. I asked this gentleman as recently as a week ago. He saw the trailer, ‘Hey, man, congrats. I’m really rooting for you. I’m sorry we didn’t get to help you with it.’
I go, ‘Dude, I totally get it. Thank you for reaching out. Means a lot. I hope we work on another project. By the way, I’m gonna have to start to do press for the film and this is going to get brought up, because everyone knows Charlotte and Liv were originally cast in it, because 100 news sites ran that story when it was happening. What do you want me to say in regards to that? What do you want me to say in regards to the WWE not having any association with it?’
He goes, ‘You know what? Let me find out what that is and get back to you.’ And guess what, no one ever told me anything. So here I am with the Cult of Cornette, shooting it left, right and centre. This is the reality of it all. I don’t know why. No one has told me anything definitively at all other than they left me at the altar twice and said, Thanks for stopping by.”
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