‘Wicked’ director says there’s “a long road ahead” for Britney Spears’ biopic

Wicked director Jon M. Chu has suggested that it might be a long wait until we get Britney Spears‘ anticipated biopic – see what he had to say below.

• READ MORE: ‘Wicked’ review: hit musical makes gravity-defying leap to the big screen

It was reported in early August last year that Spears was in the process of developing her biopic with Wicked director Jon M. Chu, based on her recent memoir The Woman In Me. “Excited to share with my fans that I’ve been working on a secret project with #MarcPlatt,” she wrote on social media at the time. “He’s always made my favourite movies… stay tuned.”

In November, Chu confirmed that that the film was in its “initial conception” stage, and that they had yet to hire a writer to pen the script. Now, Chu has shared another substantial update, telling Billboard at the 2025 Golden Globes: “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. So I want to do her justice and tell her story right. But we’ll see. We’re developing it now and it’s a long road ahead.”

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight on the same topic, Chu confirmed Spears’ involvement in the film: “She’s going to be very involved. I haven’t really started anything fully yet, but she will be very involved in this. I have ideas and things, an approach, but it’s very early.”

Despite the project having already been announced, Spears herself caused confusion in September when she seemed to imply that the “secret project” she was working on with Chu was in fact not a biopic of her life, but a “fictional musical”.

“You’ll have to ask Britney what she meant by all of that,” Chu said when asked about that post. “But she wrote my name in one of her Instagrams or tweets. That’s an honour. I love that. I think she likes to tease the audience in different ways. So I’ll let it be a mystery on her part, but I’m excited to work with her.”

The Woman In Me was a huge success upon release and has sold over 2.5million copies in the US alone, and shifted a million copies worldwide in its first week in October in 2023. Meanwhile, the audiobook —  narrated by Hollywood star Michelle Williams, with an introduction by Spears — is the fastest-selling in publisher Simon & Schuster’s history.

The book contained a number of notable revelations in its candid discussion of her career, relationships, 13-year conservatorship and personal experiences. One of the most significant was that she had an abortion while dating Justin Timberlake between 1998 to 2002 because he thought they “weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives” and were “way too young”.