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Bill Hader is in talks to write, produce, direct and potentially star in an HBO series about infamous cult leader Jim Jones. Hader’s most recent project Barry ran on HBO from 2018 to 2023.
According to a new report from Variety, the 46-year-old Saturday Night Live alum is co-writing the project with Daniel Zelman, would direct the project if it were to move forward. Hader — who won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series following Barry’s first season — is being eyed to potentially star in the series.
The report of the Jonestown project at HBO comes at a uniquely meta moment as the idea of a Jonestown movie directed by Martin Scorsese served as a recent plotline in the AppleTV+ series The Studio.
At this time, neither HBO nor Hader have officially commented on the development of the project.
“Jones founded the Peoples Temple in the 1950s and established what became known as Jonestown in the 1970s in the nation of Guyana. Jonestown came to international attention when over 900 members of the Peoples Temple, including Jones, died in a mass murder-suicide at Jones’ direction in 1978.”
“Jones and Jonestown have been the subject of intense media attention ever since. Multiple books and documentaries have been released, while Powers Boothe starred as Jones in the two-part CBS miniseries Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones in 1980. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan was also developing a Jonestown series at HBO beginning in 2016, but the project did not move forward.” [via Variety]
Due to increasing paranoia, Jones moved his Peoples Temple congregation from Indiana to California, and eventually to a remote settlement in Guyana in the 1970s, which he called Jonestown.
In 1978, following a visit from U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan — who was investigating allegations of abuse within the group and was later murdered — Jones orchestrated a mass murder-suicide of over 900 of his followers, including children, by having them drink cyanide-laced punch.
This is where the phrase “Drinking the Kool-Aid” comes from (although Jones and his cult actually used Flavor-Aid).
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