Liz Meriwether Returns to Feature <a href="https://cinemamix360.com/2026/08/27/low-budget-film-sparks-china-box/” title=”Low-budget film sparks China box”>Film Writing With Britney Spears Biopic After 15-Year Break
Liz Meriwether is writing the Britney Spears biopic for Universal. It’s been 15 years since her last feature script. The New Girl creator teamed up with director Jon M. Chu…
Laura Adkins
Published Aug 26, 2026 2:09 PM EDT
Liz Meriwether is writing the Britney Spears biopic for Universal. It’s been 15 years since her last feature script. The New Girl creator teamed up with director Jon M. Chu and producer Marc Platt. The biopic draws from Spears’ memoir, The Woman in Me.
The writer has thrown herself into prep work. Meriwether read the memoir and listened to Michelle Williams’ audiobook narration “multiple times,” calling it “one of the best audiobooks that’s ever been made,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. Williams’ performance “broke my heart in so many ways,” she added.
Music has become a key research tool. She’s been listening to Spears’ catalog and songs from the same era. Both women are 44, so the period-specific soundtrack serves as what she calls a portkey back in time.
“I’ve been going back into her whole catalog, and I’ve been making a playlist for myself of my favorites,” Meriwether said. Two deeper cuts stand out to her: “Perfume” and “If I’m Dancing.”
This assignment marks a shift. After years as the final decision-maker on television projects, she finds the team approach refreshing.
“I’m so used to being the final word on everything, but it feels really relaxing at the moment because I’m writing something and I don’t have to be the one to figure this out,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I get to just be a writer, and that’s fun.”
Meriwether has expanded her range since leaving network sitcoms behind. She created The Dropout about Elizabeth Holmes, Dying for Sex about terminal cancer, and the thriller series, Furious. Her last feature script came out in 2011.
The collaboration with Williams goes back further than the audiobook. Meriwether worked with the actor on Dying for Sex before this project began.
Britney Spears
Laura AdkinsWriter
