‘Patti Cake$’ Star Danielle Macdonald To Topline Lionsgate’s ‘White Girl Problems’

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EXCLUSIVE: Danielle Macdonald, who broke out as the star of this year’s Sundance Film Festival hit Patti Cake$, has landed the lead in White Girl Problems, the Lionsgate pic based on Babe Walker’s bestselling book. The rights were acquired in 2013 for producers Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman.

Lauren Palmigiano, formerly head writer and executive producer at Funny or Die, will make her feature film directorial debut on the pic, which was adapted by Alisha Brophy and Scott Miles. The pseudo-memoir follows a young woman with a huge social media following who melts down one afternoon after spending about a quarter of a million dollars in Barney’s and ends up in shopping rehab, where she decides to write about her life — of excess and meaningless problems.

Lionsgate did not respond to request for comment.

Fox Searchlight picked up the Macdonald-starring Patti Cake$ at Sundance this year in a $9.5 million deal after one of those all-night Park City bidding wars. The indie pic from music video director Geremy Jasper scored with Aussie-born Macdonald playing Patti aka Killa P, an unlikely rapper who finds her voice as a one-of-a-kind hip-hop legend in the making. That movie hits theaters August 18.

Macdonald is repped by CAA and Justice & Ponder. Brophy and Miles are repped by Paradigm, Circle of Confusion and attorney Lev Ginsburg.