Joseph Gordon-Levitt Cast As Cult Leader In Jim Jones Movie

Joseph Gordon-Levitt will star as cult leader Jim Jones in White Night. Directed by Anne Sewitsky and written by William Wheeler, the film will be based on surviving cult member Deborah Layton’s memoir Seductive Poison. Produced and financed by FilmNation Entertainment, the movie will follow the events preceding one of the largest mass murder-suicides in history. Occuring at a remote rainforest commune, the ordeal led to the deaths of 918 individuals from cyanide poisoning in Guyana in November of 1978.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gordon-Levitt is set to play the religious leader of the Peoples Temple cult, alongside Chloë Grace Moretz starring as Layton. White Night will follow the disturbing true story through the point of view of Layton, as she rises through the cult’s ranks to become one of Jones’ most trusted aides before she ultimately winds up exposing the harrowing truth about Jones. The cult leader led his inner circle to a remote jungle in Guyana known as the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, which led to the horrendous Jonestown Massacre.

Little is known about White Night besides the casting, but FilmNation’s president of production, Ashley Fox, has shared her optimism for Wheeler’s adaptation as it shares a “thrilling vision” for the infamous story from Layton’s perspective. Since the Guyana tragedy, there have been many documentaries and miniseries retelling the story of the cult leader from his humble religious beginnings of social activism leading to the harrowing event of the second-largest loss of American civilians in a single non-natural event. Alongside Gordon-Levitt, Leonardo DiCaprio was also announced last year to star in and produce a biopic about Jones, with the script written by Venom screenwriter Scott Rosenberg. White Night will begin filming and production this spring.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter