“Crossroads,” Britney Spears‘ first starring role in feature film, will be available on Netflix globally starting Feb. 15, the streamer announced.
The movie premiered on that same day in 2002, while Spears was fresh off the success of “Oops…I Did It Again” and “Baby One More Time” and had become the most commercially successful teenage music artist of all time.
Featuring her song “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” the film starred Spears as Lucy. The movie covered topics such as teen pregnancy, rape and childhood abandonment. The cult favorite also starred Zoë Saldana, Taryn Manning, Dan Akroyd, Beverly Johnson and Kim Cattrall. “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Bridgerton” creator Shonda Rhimes wrote the film, which was directed by Tamra Davis. The mostly female production team was a rare occurrence for the time.
“Wow, we were so ahead of our time with an African American screenwriter; me as a young, female director; and all these women telling a story about women,” Davis told PvNew in an interview celebrating the film’s 20th anniversary.
Ann Carli, who previously worked for Spears’ label Jive Records, produced the film. When she approached Davis — with whom she had previously worked on music videos — to direct, Davis initially turned down the offer. However, meeting Spears caused the director to change her mind.
“Brit opened the door and she was like wearing a little T-shirt and underwear and she was like, ‘Last night, I was hammered!’ I was like, ‘Who’s this girl?!’ [Laughing] She was hilarious and I just thought she was amazing,” Davis told PvNew. “We spent the whole day together and she proved to me that she really wanted to do this and put in the work and wanted it and was very serious about it.”
