In November 2023, reports emerged about an intense bidding war taking place to secure the rights for adapting Britney Spears’s sensational, top-selling memoir, The Woman in Me. Notable figures such as Margot Robbie, Reese Witherspoon, Shonda Rhimes, and Brad Pitt were reportedly eager to earn the privilege of transforming the page-turner into a cinematic work via their respective production companies. It now seems that this competition has concluded: Universal Pictures has clinched the project, with Jon M. Chu, known for directing Crazy Rich Asians, In The Heights, and the upcoming Wicked films, set to direct.
His participation implies that the forthcoming film might lean towards a musical rather than a somber drama, corroborated by the involvement of Marc Platt, the producer behind La La Land, nominated for an Oscar thrice, who is anticipated to develop the project. Spears herself has previously hinted at this development, posting on X: “Thrilled to tell my fans that I’ve been collaborating on a secret endeavor with Marc Platt. He’s behind my all-time favorite films… stay updated.” (Certainly, fans will find solace in knowing that the singer will partake in the production, having labored persistently to regain a narrative long taken from her.) As reported by Vanity Fair, she accepted Universal’s offer because it “was said to be in the eight-figure spectrum [and] likely as it also encompassed rights to Spears’s own music collection.”
The time period the biopic will encompass is not yet specified, although the memoir follows the Grammy awardee’s life and career journey from her early years in Louisiana, gaining stardom with The Mickey Mouse Club, to reaching the zenith of her pop fame, her renowned relationship with Justin Timberlake, the invasive media spotlight that led to her downfall, and the severe lows of her conservatorship, until her resurgence in 2021.
In summary, it’s a role that is bound to transform the actress who secures it. Among the potential leading stars are Sydney Sweeney—truly, who else to don pigtails and a knotted shirt while singing “Baby One More Time” than the Euphoria actress?—alongside Louisiana’s own Addison Rae, Dove Cameron (who, let’s not forget, nearly played Wicked’s Glinda the Good Witch before Ariana Grande claimed the role), and Millie Bobby Brown, who expressed on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2022: “I aspire to portray a real person and I believe that, for me… [it] would be Britney Spears. Her narrative strikes a chord with me. Growing up in the public eye, watching her clips, watching interviews from her youthful days… Although I don’t know her, when viewing her images, I sense I could convey her story faithfully.”