Ooh, baby, baby—a Britney biopic seems to be on the way. On Thursday, The Ankler reported that Universal Pictures had landed the rights to Britney Spears’s best-selling memoir, The Woman in Me, in a competitive bidding war, enlisting Wicked producer and director duo Marc Platt and Jon M. Chu to helm the project. The Grammy-winning artist herself will apparently also be involved in the production.
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Spears hinted at the news in a cryptic post on X. “Excited to share with my fans that I’ve been working on a secret project with #MarcPlatt,” she posted. “He’s always made my favorite movies… stay tuned.” She ending the tweet with a rose emoji and a camera emoji. It sounds like Spears loved Legally Blonde and La La Land, two classic Marc Platt productions—perhaps she even enjoyed Dear Evan Hansen.
According to The Ankler, Universal was engaged in a bidding war with major Hollywood heavy hitters like Shonda Rhimes, Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment. Studios including Sony, Warner Brothers, Fox, Disney and the streamer Netflix also reportedly vied for the project. Ultimately, The Ankler reports, Spears went with Universal in a deal that was reportedly in the eight-figure range, likely because it also included rights to Spears’s own music catalog. Chu, the acclaimed director behind Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights, and the forthcoming two-part Wicked film, has allegedly been tapped to direct.
Spears’s memoir, The Woman in Me, chronicled the highs and lows of her ascent to international pop superstardom at age 16, her life in the public eye, and the struggle to end her conservatorship. It was incredibly successful, selling 1.1 million copies in its first week in all formats—audio, hardcover, and ebook—and hitting #1 on The New York Times bestseller list. The audiobook (read by Michelle Williams) became the fastest-selling release for Gallery Books (an imprint of Simon & Schuster). As of now, it’s sold over 2.5 million copies in the US. It also launched Michelle Williams’s instantly viral Justin Timberlake impression.
Vanity Fair has reached out to Universal and Chu for comment.
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