English
Spanish
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Chinese (Simplified)
Hindi
Japanese
Jon M. Chu has set the record straight on casting rumors for his Britney Spears biopic.
“[We] have not had one conversation about casting this movie yet,” Chu, 45, confirmed Sunday, March 23 via X.
The Wicked director responded to speculation that Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter and Millie Bobby Brown were all in the running to play the “Gimme More” singer, 43. Wicked fans were especially excited about the prospect of Grande potentially reuniting with Chu following their award-winning success with the musical, in which she costarred as Glinda.
However, the filmmaker shot down the rumors entirely by writing on X, “None of this is true. Sounds exciting but have not had one conversation about casting this movie yet. We are way too early in development. Sorry.”
Deadline reported in August 2024 that Chu was teaming up with Universal Pictures on a film adaptation of Spears’ 2023 New York Times bestselling memoir The Woman in Me. The memoir detailed Spears’ years-long battle to be freed from a conservatorship that controlled her life, both personally and professionally.
Several notable stars have expressed interest in playing Spears, including Brown, 21, revealing on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2022 (long before the memoir’s publication) that she felt passionate about the “Toxic” singer’s life story.
“I want to play a real person and I think for me, Britney. [It] would be Britney Spears,” Brown told host Drew Barrymore. “I think her story resonates with me. Just growing up, watching her videos, watching interviews of her when she was younger — I see the scramble for words and I don’t know her, but when I look up pictures of her I feel like I could tell her story in the right way and hers only.”
Spears seemed less than enthusiastic about Brown’s movie pitch, suggesting on Instagram at the time that it was premature to turn her life into a Hollywood film.
“Good news, good news !!! Still breathing … I hear about people wanting to do movies about my life … dude I’m not dead !!!” Spears wrote via Instagram in November 2022. “Although it’s pretty f—king clear they preferred me dead 🙄🙄🙄 … I guess my family is going to lock their doors now 🤔🤔🤔🙄🙄🙄🤧🤧🤧 !!!”
American Horror Story star Emma Roberts was later recommended by Spears’ former assistant, Felicia Culotta, as ideal casting for the movie.
“I was like, ‘I love her assistant,’” Roberts, 34, later joked to Cosmopolitan in August 2024. “I mean, it’s my true dream to play Britney Spears. It’s a rumor, but I hope maybe it’ll come true.
“I mean, I remember I locked myself in my room and listened to In the Zone and said, “I cannot leave this room until I memorize every word,” the AHS actress recalled.
The biopic’s director, Chu, has plenty of experience tackling music-themed projects, as he made Justin Bieber’s concert movies Never Say Never and Believe, in 2011 and 2013, respectively. He later directed the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway breakthrough In the Heights in 2021 and received acclaim for 2024’s Wicked.
A Wicked sequel, titled Wicked: For Good, will hit cinemas in November 2025. Based off the second act of the hit Oz-inspired Broadway show of the same name, Chu’s musical reunites him with Grande and Cynthia Erivo, who return as Glinda and Elphaba.
In January 2025, Chu warned Spears superfans that it would be “a long road” before the biopic was completed because he wanted to ensure authenticity and sensitivity.
“I’m a big fan of Britney. I’ve been a fan since I was young and she was young and she was one of 12 acts at the Shrine Auditorium,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “So I want to do her justice and tell her story right.”
Meanwhile, it was reported in February that Britney agreed to cover her father Jamie Spears’ outstanding legal bills resulting from the conservatorship, totalling over $2.12 million. The pair also agreed that Britney’s payments resolved any lingering disputes with her father, relating to the termination of her conservatorship in 2021.
