Barry Jenkins boards that Zendaya-Ronnie Spector biopic

The project has reportedly recalibrated to focus on the singer's tumultuous time with Phil Spector.

By Drew Gillis  |  March 26, 2025 | 10:44am
Photos: Kyusung Gong / ©A.M.P.A.S., Trae Patton ©A.M.P.A.S.
Film News Ronnie Spector
Barry Jenkins boards that Zendaya-Ronnie Spector biopic

The premise of Zendaya portraying Ronnie Spector in a biopic has been floating around for nearly a half-decade at this point, but it’s finally showing some real signs of life. Deadline reports this morning that Moonlight and Mufasa director Barry Jenkins has come aboard the project, reteaming him with Moonlight production and distribution company A24. The trade also reports that Dave Kajganich, whose credits include A Bigger Splash, Bones And All, and the 2018 remake of Suspiria, will write the screenplay. 

The project previously obtained the life rights to Spector’s life as well as the rights to her 1990 memoir, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, or My Life as a Fabulous Ronette. Those remain “intact,” though Jenkins has reportedly recalibrated plans for a traditional full-life biopic, instead opting to focus on the period of her relationship with producer, ex-husband, and eventual convicted murderer Phil Spector. Phil signed her band The Ronettes in 1963, and the two wed in 1968. Ronnie later said that Phil threatened to kill her if she ever left him; she did eventually leave in 1974, writing in her book (via the New York Post) “I can only say that when I left in the early ’70s, I knew that if I didn’t leave at that time, I was going to die there.”

Zendaya has of course remained in-demand in the years since she first signed onto the project. Not only did she star in the second season of Euphoria, winning a second Emmy in the process, but she starred in Challengers and both Dunes. She is currently in production for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and will voice Shrek’s daughter in Shrek 5. She’ll also appear in Kristoffer Borgli’s next project The Drama opposite Robert Pattinson, so it sounds like she’ll get around to Ronnie Spector… sometime between now and 2030.

 
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