Universal Pictures Acquires Rights to Britney Spears Memoir for Upcoming Biopic

Universal Pictures has secured the film rights to Britney Spears’s best-selling memoir, The Woman in Me, and is set to develop a biopic based on the pop star’s life. The announcement, made by the studio on Thursday, reveals that Jon Chu, known for directing Crazy Rich Asians, will develop and direct the film. Marc Platt, renowned for producing La La Land, will oversee the project.

Spears excitedly shared the news with her fans on social media, revealing her collaboration with Platt and expressing enthusiasm for the secret project. The memoir, published last October, has sold over 2.5 million copies in the U.S., and details Spears’s rise from a child star to a global icon, including her struggles with fame, personal breakdowns, and legal battles with her father.

The Woman in Me offers an unfiltered look at Spears’s life, touching on her early career successes with hits like “…Baby One More Time,” her experiences with the invasive paparazzi, and her tumultuous relationships. The book also reveals a difficult period in her life, including an abortion she was pressured into by her then-partner, Justin Timberlake, and a brief, intense relationship with actor Colin Farrell.

The memoir also discusses Spears’s conservatorship, which was imposed by her father, Jamie Spears, following her public breakdown. The conservatorship, which controlled her finances and personal decisions, was finally dissolved by a Los Angeles court in 2021 after significant public outcry under the “Free Britney” movement.

Universal Pictures, which has previously produced musical biopics such as Straight Outta Compton about N.W.A and 8 Mile featuring Eminem, has not yet announced a release date for the film. Jon Chu is also set to direct the highly anticipated two-part adaptation of the musical Wicked for Universal, with the first installment scheduled to premiere in November.

Fans can look forward to seeing Spears’s complex and multifaceted life story brought to the big screen, with the project promising to capture the highs and lows of her extraordinary journey.