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Britney Spears ‘Needs to Be Realistic’ About Her Biopic Timeline, but She ‘Needs Money’
Britney Spears is desperate to get her biopic off the ground, but a source exclusively tells Life & Style it’s being delayed deep into 2025, which is a major blow to the pop star’s ego — as well as her finances!
“The Britney biopic is not on a fast track, and that is a reflection of the risks involved here and nothing more,” reveals a source. The biopic will be based on Britney’s 2023 memoir The Woman in Me, which revealed major bombshells, including how Justin Timberlake allegedly treated the singer, 42, during their time together and what went on behind the scenes at her toxic household growing up.
Still, the source says, “There’s a level of demand for the Britney movie that only increases every day and every week that she personally stays away from the music business and live performing.”
According to the insider, fans of the “…Baby One More Time” singer “miss the music, and they miss her.”
However, these kinds of movies “are usually a coin flip,” says the source.
While there have been a handful of highly successful films based on the lives of legendary musicians, there have also been a ton of flops and stalled movies, including the Madonna biopic that was reportedly paused in January 2023.
“For every Freddie Mercury and Elton John slam-dunk [2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody and 2019’s Rocketman, respectively] there are plenty of failures, most notably the recent Whitney Houston biopic,” the source says. “Britney needs to be realistic about how much is at risk with one of these movies and how lofty her expectations should be.”
The source points out that the surviving members of Queen “patiently waited for decades for the stars to align around getting the Bohemian Rhapsody movie made — and Oscar worthy, to boot!”
“Their patience was rewarded,” the insider adds, noting that the film took home four Academy Awards, including one for star Rami Malek.
As for Britney, the source says she and her team “need to take a long-term view of this process and not be so obsessed with the short-term payoff or following the music biopic trend.”
Adds the insider, “I get that Britney needs money and is tired of performing live, but these things take time!”
In August, it was revealed that Universal Pictures — the studio behind the stalled Madonna, 66, biopic — landed the rights to Britney’s best-selling memoir The Woman in Me. Wicked director Jon M. Chu is set to helm the film, which will be produced by major Hollywood producer Marc Platt.
Time will tell how long it takes for the film to actually get up and running, since Madonna has struggled with her own movie. A separate source told Life & Style earlier this month that the “Like a Virgin” singer is hoping to get the team behind Barbie on board to help move things along.
“If Madonna could make this happen, it’s an instant green-light,” the source said of the Queen of Pop meeting with producers Margot Robbie and her husband, Tom Ackerley, as well as director-writer Greta Gerwig and her husband, cowriter Noah Baumbach.
“Margot, Tom, Greta and Noah are literally the only qualified filmmaking team with the clout and juice to get the Madonna biopic made and at the scale Madonna wants,” explained the source.
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