White Night, a psychological thriller on Jones’ infamous People’s Temple cult, has cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt as well as Chloe Grace Moretz as cult leader Jim Jones and Jonestown victim Deborah Layton, respectively.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, evangelist Jim Jones amassed a big and loyal following around his headquarters in San Francisco. In Guyana, he founded “Jonestown” in 1974. On November 18, 1978, Jones issued a directive to his followers to consume poison. One of its greatest mass murder-suicides in history claimed the lives of over 900 individuals.
Moretz will portray Layton, a man who was seduced into Jones’ inner circle and rose through the ranks of the People’s Temple before discovering the truth about him and attempting to expose him to the rest of the world.
The project will be launched at Berlin’s European Film Market next week, with FilmNation managing international sales.
White Night, based on Layton’s best-selling memoir Seductive Poison and written by William Wheeler of The Ghost in the Shell fame, will be directed by Anne Sewitsky. FilmNation Entertainment is funding and producing the film alongside Archer Gray.
Chloe Grace-most Moretz’s recent project was the sci-fi thriller Mother/Android, which premiered on Hulu in December. In the Showtime short series Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play Uber founder Travis Kalanick, and in Robert Zemeckis’ live-action remake of Pinocchio, he will voice Jiminy Cricket.
White Night will begin filming in the spring.
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