One of the most horrifying true stories of them all, the “Jonestown Massacre” has been used as the inspiration for a handful of movies over the years, including 2013’s Ti West-directed The Sacrament, a found footage horror movie that featured a chilling performance from Gene Jones as “The Father,” a cult leader very much based on the real-life Jim Jones.
Up next, Leonardo DiCaprio is now in talks to play the actual Jim Jones in an MGM feature film simply titled Jim Jones at this time, Deadline is reporting this week.
The script was written by Scott Rosenberg (Venom).
Deadline explains, “Jones founded the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955, and hailed it as a fully integrated congregation promoting Christian Socialism. By the 1970s he openly rejected traditional Christianity and claimed that he was God. He constructed Jonestown in Guyana in 1974 and spurred a following to live with him there as he touted a socialist paradise free from U.S. government oppression.
“Amid rumors of human rights abuses, the American government sent a delegation led by U.S. Representative Leo Ryan in November 1978. Ryan, along with four others, would eventually be gunned down by Jones’ followers. Following the shooting, Jones orchestrated a mass murder-suicide of his followers, which took the lives of 918 commune members, 304 of them children, in an act that entailed drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.”
DiCaprio is also set to produce for his company Appian Way.