We knew it’d be sooner than later, that Sue Monk Kidd’s best-selling novel, The Secret Life of Bees, would get turned into a movie with big-name actors. Variety has confirmed that Queen Latifah, Sophie Okonedo, and Jennifer Hudson will star in the Fox Searchlight picture, which will begin filming in January and be released sometime next year. The paper also reported that Dakota Fanning and Alicia Keys are in negotiations to join the film, and that Gina Prince-Bythewood of Love & Basketball will direct.

The story centers around a South Carolina girl in the 1960s, who runs away from her troubled life and ends up in the home of three beekeeping sisters. Fanning would star as the young girl, Lily Owens, with Hudson as her friend and caregiver and Latifah, Keys, and Okonedo will play the sisters.