By Stephen M. Lepore for Dailymail.Com 01:42 November 13, 2023, updated 02:27 November 13, 2023
- The Grammy-winning singer’s memoir The Woman in Me sold 1.1 million copies in its first week in the US alone
- Some of the biggest names are already reportedly looking to bring their story to film or television
- Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Shonda Rhimes and Reese Witherspoon are among the power players who will bid for rights somewhere in the mid-eight figures
Britney Spears’ hit memoir The Woman in Me appears destined for the big screen, with Hollywood stars lining up to pay up to tens of millions for the book’s adaptation.
According to sales figures, the Grammy-winning singer’s memoir sold 1.1 million copies in the US alone in its first week.
According to The Ankler, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Shonda Rhimes and Reese Witherspoon are among the influential Hollywood stars who will bid in the mid-eight figures for the rights.
Rhimes – whose Shondaland Productions brought the global hits “Grey’s Anatomy” to “Bridgerton” – famously wrote the screenplay for “Crossroads,” Spears’ 2002 foray into movie stardom.
According to sales figures, the Grammy-winning singer’s memoir sold 1.1 million copies in the US alone in its first week.
Rumor has it that Robbie’s LuckyChap Productions, Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment and Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine are also bidding for the rights.
There has been no clear front-runner or concrete meetings about this book yet, and Spears’ team will likely wait out the early release period.
The 41-year-old singer has postponed at least one meeting with a “top producer” in recent months.
“She doesn’t give a fuck who you are,” a producer who previously worked with Britney told The Ankler. “She’s always been like that. It’s just Britney.’
Producers are reportedly “extremely compassionate” and willing to wait until Spears is ready to bring the project to the screen.
DailyMail.com has reached out to representatives from Spears, Plan B, Shondaland, Hello Sunshine and Robbie for comment.
Sales figures include pre-orders, print sales, e-books and audiobooks; “The Woman in Me,” released Oct. 24, was praised by critics as a riveting account of her rise to global fame and her ongoing struggles.
The book includes accounts of the conservatorship that gave her father control over much of her life for years, as well as her revelation that she had an abortion more than 20 years ago while dating Justin Timberlake.
Shonda Rhimes – whose Shondaland Productions brought the global hits “Grey’s Anatomy” to “Bridgerton” – famously wrote the screenplay for “Crossroads,” Spears’ foray into movie stardom in 2002. Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment is also rumored to be applying to adapt Spears’ memoir Margot RobbieReese Witherspoon12700849 Britney Spears says she is “grateful” to fans and readers after her memoir sold more than a million copies in its first week. The 41-year-old singer was pictured on Instagram on Wednesday evening. Copies of her book were pictured in Madrid, Spain last week
On release day, the Oops!… I Did It Again singer posted on Instagram that her book was “the best-selling celebrity memoir in history.”
So far, it’s not even the best-selling memoir of 2023, as Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare,” released in January, sold 1.6 million copies in the U.S. in its first week.
“The Woman in Me,” which the Toxic artist barely promoted beyond Instagram, was last week’s top seller.
Last month, Spears told People she was relieved to be able to provide her account of her life after years of others doing so.
“For the last 15 years or even early in my career, I sat back while people talked about me and told my story for me,” Spears said. “After leaving my conservatory, I finally had the freedom to tell my story without the consequences of the people responsible for my life.”
The audio edition of The Woman in Me, read by Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams, appears to be a key factor in the book’s initial popularity.
Williams’ rendition of “The Woman in Me” has received critical acclaim and is, according to Gallery, the fastest-selling audio release in the company’s history. The publisher initially did not disclose any specific audio sales figures.
The fourth printing of the memoir is already planned, which will bring the total circulation of hardcover copies to over 1.4 million, the publisher said.
The singer was pictured in a revealing red dress on Tuesday as she celebrated the success of her bestselling book. Last week, the singer announced the first sales success of her memoir on Instagram
“The book has been published in 26 languages/territories and is a No. 1 bestseller worldwide with an estimated 2.4 million copies in print,” the publisher said, including in the United Kingdom, India and Australia.
Jennifer Bergstrom, senior vice president of Gallery Books, said the memoir “has generated significant interest since its announcement and has received extraordinary critical acclaim since its publication.”
“It is selling in extraordinary numbers across all editions worldwide and we expect strong sales to continue throughout the holiday season and beyond.” Readers and reviewers have raved about the Lucky singer’s “candid and powerful memoir, in which she is finally able to tell her story on her own terms.”
According to Luminate, a music and entertainment analytics company, Spears’ memoir helped boost streams and sales across her music catalog.
In one day last week, Monday through Tuesday, Spears’ catalog increased 18.2 percent in on-demand streams and 36.8 percent in album sales.
In the following days the numbers continued to rise. According to Luminate, their US streams increased 24 percent compared to the previous week – from 16 million to 19.8 million; Their album sales increased 61.4 percent and digital sales increased 49 percent.
According to Circana, which covers about 85 percent of the print market, “The Woman in Me” sold just under 418,000 copies, well below the first-week Circana numbers for former President Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land” and “Becoming.” former First Lady Michelle Obama and other memoirs.
No non-fiction release comes close to the scale of JK Rowling’s final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which came out in 2007 and sold more than 8 million copies in the first 24 hours.