Jon M. Chu wants to make Britney Spears proud with the upcoming biopic about her life. On the Golden Globes red carpet Sunday, the Wicked director, who’s set to direct a biopic based on Spears’ memoir, said he wanted to do her story “justice” with the film.
“I really can’t talk about that yet,” he told Billboard‘s Tetris Kelly, before adding, “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,” he added.
Last August, Spears shared her excitement for working with Marc Platt as a producer on the film based on her book, The Woman in Me. It was later reported that Chu would also be attached to the project as the film’s director at Universal Pictures.
“I’ve gone to many of her shows, and she’s always been someone I’ve looked up to,” Chu told The Hollywood Reporter in November. “She represents a generation of people growing up in the 2000s and late Nineties, and she has a story that deserves to be told properly. There’s a lot about us in it.”
“We haven’t written the script yet, we haven’t hired a writer yet. But in this initial conception, I think it’s a lot about how we treat people, young people, stars that we think we own, women, mothers,” Chu added. “There’s a lot of things in there that I would love to explore.”
Although no writers or cast have been attached to the film yet, Emma Roberts addressed rumors that she was being cast to play the pop star in the Chu film. “I was like, ‘I love her assistant,’” Roberts told Cosmopolitan. “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.’”
From Rolling Stone US