In the movie ‘Django Unchained’ he played a slave fanatic and now Leonardo Dicaprio is ready to bring to the big screen a different type of fanatic, the religious one: he will in fact be the protagonist of a film inspired by true story of the guru Jim Jones (1931-1978), who at one point decided to proclaim himself a god and who was ultimately responsible for a mass suicide.
Leonardo DiCaprio and the true story of the Reverend Jim Jones
The plot of the film, which still does not have an official title, tells about the Reverend Jones and how in 1955 founded the People’s Temple, which in the space of a few years will give rise to a large commune that advocated a sort of Christian socialism. In the mid-seventies he moved with his followers to Guyana, a state of South America: here he founded the town of Jonestown, definitively abandoned all hints of Christianity and proclaimed himself a god.
When rumors surfaced in 1978 that Jonestown was the scene of human rights violations, and in particular that slavery was practiced, US Congressman Leo Ryan headed a delegation to go to the scene and ascertain what was happening. Jones’s followers attacked him and the delegates with machine gun shots and killed everyone. On November 18, 1978 the reverend communicated to his followers that “to defend themselves from the invasion of Evil” they had to committing suicide by ingesting cyanide: 918 members of the community, including 304 children, died and Jones shot himself in the head.
He film
Starting from this true story, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg wrote the script of the film that will see Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of Jim Jones: Rosenberg is that of ‘Con Air’ (1997), ‘High fidelity’ (2000), of the two new Jumanji (2017 and 2019) and also of the TV series ‘Life on Mars’ and ‘Zoo’. Reading the script, DiCaprio decided he liked the lead role, fielded his own production company, and convinced MGM to finance the film. Now he is looking for the right director: things could happen quickly, because at the moment his acting agenda is relatively free.