Britney Spears biopic sees Margot Robbie and Sabrina Carpenter eye starring role

Britney Spears is facing possible prison time over her latest arrest…..while the world’s top female stars battle it out to fill her shoes in a blockbuster new film.

The troubled pop princess and mother of two is due in court on May 4 after being stopped last month on suspicion of “driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs” and thrown in a police cell for three hours.

Charges against her will depend on toxicology reports – with potential sentences ranging from six months to two years if found guilty – and will be revealed by prosecutors at her arraignment in three weeks.

At the same time, casting auditions for a big-budget biopic based on her best-selling 2023 book The Woman in Me are due to begin in Hollywood, with a small army of A List actresses and singers all vying for the coveted lead role.

They reportedly include Barbie and Wuthering Heights icon Margot Robbie as well as Ariana Grande, Millie Bobby Brown, Olivia Holt and Sabrina Carpenter, with scores of relative unknowns also in contention.

Acclaimed director Jon M. Chu, who helmed both recent Wicked movies, and producer Marc Platt will ultimately decide between them who will be cast as Britney, who earned $15 million (about £11.2m) for the film rights to her autobiography from Universal Pictures.

The “Oops! I Did It Again” singer, 44, also struck gold four months ago by selling her music catalogue rights to US entertainment giant Primary Wave for a sum reported to be in excess of $200 million (£149m).

This deal alone has restored the fortune Britney squandered during her infamous period of “public meltdowns” in 2007 and 2008 that twice saw her land in hospital psychiatric wards after being arrested and culminated in the 13-year conservatorship order that gave her now-estranged father Jamie control of her finances.

Britney is still at war with her entire family over the court-ordered conservatorship that ended in late 2021 but both she and her fans entered this year convinced the dark days were over and she was back on track with the lucrative music and movie contracts.

But the three-times married star took a wrong turn again last month when police in Ventura County, California stopped her black new model 4 series BMW convertible for driving “erratically at high speeds.”

A report of California Highway Patrol officers claimed she “appeared to be driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs” with the results of a blood test expected to be publicly revealed for the first time at her arraignment next month.

LA based criminal attorney James Allen, who is not involved in the case, said: “If it’s alcohol alone, the maximum she could get for a DUI first offence would be six months. But if drugs have shown up in her blood sample, a judge could give her up to two years, although the expectation has to be that – rather than incarceration – she will get probation, a hefty fine, and be ordered into rehab.”

Leading US addiction specialist Dr. Adi Jaffe, founder of the IGNTD Recovery Centre, which advocates “shame-free treatment,” told the Sunday Express that he believes loved ones should stage an “immediate intervention,” adding: “Her online posts and public behaviour suggest she needs help right now.”

Britney’s sons Sean Preston, 20, and Jayden James, 19, have both flown from their home in Hawaii to stay with their mother at her home in the LA celebrity enclave of Calabasas, where their mother reportedly fired her full-time sobriety coach and security guard just days before her latest arrest.

A friend who has known the family for more than two decades said yesterday: “They’re still only kids, really. But if anyone can keep their Mom sane and sober, they can. They adore her and she adores them and will listen to them more than anyone else.

“Brit’s made a habit of hanging with people who do little but lead her astray and I think Jay and Sean have the strength of character to persuade her to keep the hangers-on and sketchy so-called friends at bay.”

Meanwhile, as studio giant Universal prepares to cast its lead actor in the as yet untitled Britney biopic, a senior production source confirmed: “She has already agreed that, whoever ends up portraying her, she’s happy for us to add new scenes that aren’t in her book.

“The thing with Britney is, though, that art is never going to be able to keep pace with her real life.”