Jack Rooke wants to give the Spice Girls the cinematic treatment they actually warrant. Rather than assembling a solemn, award-hungry biographical drama, the BAFTA-winning creator of Channel 4 series Big Boys has penned a script for a comedy drama that leans directly into the unruly energy of the nineties pop phenomenon.
Rooke broke the news while guest hosting the BBC Sounds podcast Sidetracked With Annie And Nick, sitting in for regular presenter Nick Grimshaw alongside Annie Macmanus. Discussing how he would bring the pop group to cinemas, Rooke confirmed he had already put a draft together with what he described as a lovely little group of gals and gays. He pointed out that the project is not officially greenlit yet. Conversations remain ongoing, and securing full sign-off from Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm, and Geri Halliwell is an essential hurdle before production can happen.
To Rooke, telling their story requires unabashed fun rather than cinematic reverence. He contrasted the idea with the quartet of Beatles films currently being prepped by director Sam Mendes. If the British film landscape can make space for four separate pictures dedicated to one legendary group, Rooke argued, there should easily be room for a big comedy romp about five pop icons. Laughing that he had probably revealed far too much already, he admitted the concept was his personal dream and desire.
A major draw for Rooke is the broader social reality behind the group. He noted that watching the Spice Girls as a viewer was the first time he recalled seeing working-class women openly pursuing huge ambitions in British pop culture, even with a massive commercial machine humming behind them. That balance of social perspective and warmth has been central to Rooke's work on Big Boys, which finished its three-season run in 2025. Featuring Dylan Llewellyn and Jon Pointing, the semi-autobiographical series drew praise for depicting young male friendship while bypassing predictable television tribes and cliches.
Should the screenplay navigate development, it will not mark the first time the group has taken over cinema screens. Back in 1997, they fronted the surreal comedy Spice World, featuring a supporting cast that pulled in Meat Loaf, Elton John, Bob Geldof, Stephen Fry, and Hugh Laurie. Talk of an outright cinematic sequel circulated in 2021 before coming to nothing. Even so, the idea of a proper autobiographical film has found backing from within the lineup. In 2020, Melanie C expressed public support for the idea, stating that their journey felt tailor-made for the screen and that audiences were genuinely keen to see it.
The script surfaces during the 30th anniversary year of Wannabe, the July 1996 breakthrough that vaulted all five members into instant global fame. Anyone hoping that three-decade milestone would bring a stadium tour has had to lower their expectations. Melanie C confirmed earlier this year that while the group wanted to mark the occasion together, a 2026 tour was completely off the table, and Melanie Brown later verified that a full reunion trek was not going ahead. Instead, fans have had to settle for sporadic, smaller glimpses. Earlier this year, Beckham, Chisholm, Bunton, and Halliwell were seen informally singing Viva Forever together, while Brown and Chisholm reunited on a stage in Leeds to run through Spice Up Your Life.
Whether Rooke's script makes it into production remains to be decided by the band and studios, but his approach gets to the heart of what made them work. Squeezing the Spice Girls into a prestige biopic structure risks erasing the manic noise that defined their breakthrough. An unvarnished comedy romp, built around five working-class women taking over the pop universe with ruthless ambition, might be the only format that makes sense.
