This film is based on the 2000 novel "Blonde" by
Joyce Carol Oates, which is a fictionalized account inspired by the life of
Marilyn Monroe, not an actual biography. Oates insisted that the novel is a work of fiction that should not be regarded as a biography. Oates said that she didn't have anything to do with the making of this film, though once in a while, director Andrew Dominik would get in contact with her, and that she was given an almost-final cut in 2020 and she has praised the film ever since. The novel had been previously adapted into a two-part miniseries:
Blonde (2001), starring
Poppy Montgomery as Monroe.