In what was reportedly a competitive situation, Sony subsidiary TriStar Pictures has snatched up the worldwide rights to the Zendaya thriller, A White Lie. 

A “hot pitch package” when it was first announced, it is a film adaptation of the Karin Tanabe novel, The Gilded Years.

The novel, a psychological thriller, “built around the true story of Anita Hemmings, a light-skinned African American woman. She is the daughter of a janitor, who passed as white so she could attend Vassar at the turn of the century.” She is treated as a wealthy and educated white woman and sparks a romance with a rich Harvard student.

Zendaya will play Hemmings.

She will produce the film, along with Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter through Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine.

Monica Beletsky is writing.

Zendaya, who starred in Spider-Man: Homecoming, was last seen in The Greatest Showman with Michelle Williams, Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron.