Universal has tapped New Girl creator Liz Meriwether to write the Britney Spears biopic, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project is an adaptation of Spears' best-selling 2023 memoir, The Woman In Me.
No official announcement has been made by the studio. Jon M. Chu is reportedly on board to direct, and Marc Platt will produce. The three form a reunion of sorts, as Universal previously worked with Chu and Platt on the two Wicked films. A spokesperson for Universal had not returned a request for comment at press time.
Meriwether brings a wide range of television and film credits to the project. In addition to creating New Girl, the long-running sitcom starring Zooey Deschanel, Jake Johnson, and Max Greenfield, she earned four Emmy nominations and created the ABC sitcoms Single Parents and Bless This Mess. She also wrote the 2011 romantic comedy No Strings Attached, starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman. More recently, she served as the creative force behind the Hulu drama The Dropout, which followed disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, and last year's Dying For Sex, starring Michelle Williams, Jenny Slate, and Rob Delaney.
Spears' memoir covers her rise from humble beginnings to pop superstardom in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It chronicles her relationship with her family, her romance with Justin Timberlake, and the public mental health struggles that led to a 13-year conservatorship she fought to end. The audiobook, read by Williams, became the fastest-selling in Simon & Schuster's history.
The project arrives at a moment when musician biopics are drawing significant box office attention. The Michael Jackson biopic Michael recently surpassed the Freddie Mercury film Bohemian Rhapsody to become the top-grossing musician biopic of all time, with grosses north of $978 million. The Hollywood Reporter noted that studios are now actively hunting for other music stories to tell. A Snoop Dogg biopic starring Jonathan Davis of Outer Banks is currently in production.
