Jon M. Chu says his Britney Spears biopic will be about treatment of 'stars that we think we own'

The "Wicked" and "Crazy Rich Asians" director boarded the adaptation of Spears' memoir "The Woman in Me" in August.

Oops! Jon M. Chu's about to do it again.

In the feverish midst of promoting his upcoming film Wicked, the supreme tentpole affair of the fall movie season, Chu offered some of the first remarks on the Britney Spears biopic he's signed on to direct. "I cannot talk much about the Britney story other than I have been a Britney fan for many years," he recently told The Hollywood Reporter. "I saw her when she was one of 12 acts at the Shrine Auditorium. I've gone to many of her shows, and she’s always been someone I've looked up to. She represents a generation of people growing up in the 2000s and late '90s, and she has a story that deserves to be told properly. There's a lot about us in it."

Regarding the film itself, Chu stated that "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."

Universal announced in August that Spears' widely-read 2023 memoir, The Woman In Me, would serve as the basis for a Britney biopic. Chu, who's helming Wicked for the studio, was tapped to direct, and Marc Platt, a producer on the Broadway adaptation, will reteam with Chu to produce.

Keeping with the stage-to-screen musical trend (Chu directed an adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In The Heights in 2021), Chu was also announced as the director of a new adaptation of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Spears seemed to hint in a September Instagram post that her collaboration with Chu wasn't the biopic, but Joseph, when she wrote "The project I might be doing isn't a biopic story... it's a fictional musical where I play an extremely intelligent character!!! It's flattering to be in such good company like Jon Chu!!!"

Related: Britney Spears confused by Sabrina Carpenter's VMA performance: 'Love her to death... why didn't she kiss a girl?'

"You’ll have to ask Britney what she meant by all of that," Chu demurred when asked about the post by THR. "But she wrote my name in one of her Instagrams or tweets. That’s an honor. 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."

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The question on everyone's minds, however, has yet to be answered: who will play Britney?Entertainment Weekly weighed in on the best Britney contenders in August, putting forth ascendant Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney, TikTok trendinista turned main pop girl Addison Rae, and Schmigadoon's Dove Cameron, who coincidentally was Kristin Chenoweth's early pick for who should step onto the big screen as Glinda, the character she originated in the first Broadway iteration of Wicked.

Emma Roberts even threw her own hat in the ring, saying "it's my dream come true to play Britney Spears."

Related: Wicked director Jon M. Chu previews key scenes: 'Dancing Through Life,' Wizard's lair, and more (exclusive)

The Woman In Me covers a lot of ground, from Spears' complicated childhood in Louisiana, to her breakout role on The Mickey Mouse Club, to relationships with Justin Timberlake and Kevin Federline, her pop music superstardom, and her 13-year conservatorship and the eventual falling out it caused between Spears and sister Jamie Lynn, mother Lynne, and father Jamie.

That just means more dreamcasting (Harry Styles as JT? Sabrina Carpenter as Spears' fellow mouseketeer Christina Aguilera? Jojo Siwa as Jamie Lynn?) until Chu is at liberty to share more concrete details.