Jenkins and Zendaya team up for “BeMyBaby”

Barry Jenkins has signed on to direct Zendaya in A24's Be My Baby, the long-awaited Ronnie Spector biography.
Deadline exclusively reported Wednesday morning that Jenkins had joined Zendaya's project and that Dave Kajganich will now write the screenplay, which had previously been assigned to Jackie Sibblies Drury.

According to the Deadline report, "the star and Jenkins, who'd been looking to work together for some time, agreed on a version of Spector's story that could immerse audiences in what the singer's life with the troubled producer Phil Spector felt like rather than a traditional cradle to the grave biopic."

A24 began working on the project in 2020, with Zendaya, Adam Siegel, Mark Itkin, and Tom Shelly serving as producers. According to Deadline, Spector's life rights and her memoir, Be My Baby, remain intact, with Kajganich "hard at work on an expressive interpretation of Spector's life Zendaya. and Jenkins are after." Prior to her death, Spector was executive producing the project and chose Zendaya to play her, much like Aretha Franklin chose Jennifer Hudson.

Here's more on Spector's story, according to the 2020 report:

She grew up in Spanish Harlem and formed the girl group The Ronettes with her older sister Estelle Bennett and cousin Nedra Talley. They were contracted by the notoriously volatile record producer Phil Spector to his Philles Record label, where they released their breakthrough single Be My Baby. She married Spector, and as she recounts in the book, it was evident she had made a huge mistake when she awoke one morning to the sound of bars being put on the windows of their mansion. She wisely battled for the rights to her music throughout the subsequent divorce, and she was later admitted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She also had a second wind when she performed her most famous hit in a duet with Eddie Money on Take Me Home Tonight.

This is another A24-Barry Jenkins collaboration, following Moonlight from the studio and Jenkins' Sorry, Baby, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year. This is Zendaya's third A24 production, following her HBO series Euphoria and the upcoming feature The Drama, in which she will act alongside Robert Pattinson.

Jenkins has recently joined Universal Pictures' The Natural Order, where he will direct Glen Powell.