Once a tell-tale sign of a flagging career, a lead role in a biopic has become a Hollywood status symbol, with the lives of legendary musicians being mined for feature-length films. In the pipeline there’s Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney in Sam Mendes’s Beatles biopic, Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson, Selena Gomez as Linda Ronstadt and Shailene Woodley as Janis Joplin.
After an intense bidding war for the film rights to Spears’ best-selling memoir, The Woman In Me, Universal Studios landed the project reportedly beating Bridgerton producer Shonda Rhimes, Brad Pitt’s studio Plan B and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment.
With Wicked director and self-proclaimed Spears fan Jon M Chu at the helm (along with Wicked producer Marc Platt), he’s assured fans that he will do her story justice. ‘[Spears] will be very involved in this,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen all the fan castings and I always take those into consideration because maybe there’s a good idea out there,’ Chu added. ‘But we’ll have to see what the approach of the movie is before we know who’s right for it.’
Given Chu and Platt’s involvement, there is speculation that Oscar-nominated Wicked star Ariana Grande could be a contender. A former child star herself, with proven acting and singing credentials, Grande does a mean Spears impression, something she showed off during her opening monologue on Saturday Night Live last October.
Millie Bobby Brown threw her hat in the ring during a recent interview. ‘Everybody’s talking about Britney,’ she said when asked who she would love to play in a biopic. ‘She’s one of my biggest inspirations,’ adding, ‘any conversation with Britney I would take.’ Actor Emma Roberts echoed Brown’s sentiment, calling Spears ‘an icon’. ‘I love her, I love her book and it would be a dream [to play her],’ she told NBC News.
When the biopic was announced, Sydney Sweeney’s name bubbled up online, with commentators noting her physical likeness to the singer. Sweeney has not commented, but she has the bookies’ backing (there’s already odds on who will land the role, Sweeney’s being 5/4) and Billboard cast her in its ‘dream’ line-up.
Selena Gomez could also be in with a shot, with reports suggesting her relationship with Spears might work in her favour. According to Life & Style, Gomez is top of Spears’ personal list of who she’d want to play her, with Natalie Portman coming in a close second. TikTok star turned singer Addison Rae would be a wild card, but a popular fan choice online. Rae is from Spears’ hometown of Louisiana and recent red-carpet appearances suggest she’s emulating Spears in a not-so-subtle bid for the part.
That said, when asked about the role she had a very gracious response: ‘I honestly don’t think anyone deserves to play Britney. Nobody will be able to replicate what she did for music… I think she’ll have the best opinion on who she thinks that should be.’