The shocking story of the “Temple of the People” sect back in the 70’s will take us to the new film by Leonardo DiCaprio. The Oscar-winning actor agreed to star, but also to undertake production for the project through his company with MGM taking over the rights to the screenplay written by Scott Rosenberg (High Fidelity, Venom, Jumanji).
DiCaprio will play Jim Jones, who founded the “Temple of the People” in the mid-1950s, but as the years went by he rejected traditional Christianity and began to call himself a god. In 1974 he founded Jonestown in Guyana, promising his followers a socialist paradise away from government oppression.
By 1978, more than 900 people were living in Jonestown, with the issue escalating over time and the government deciding to investigate the city’s living conditions, sending Senator Leo Ryan there in November 1978.
Shortly before leaving Guyana, the senator was killed at the airport along with four others, and Jones then staged a mass suicide with his followers drinking cyanide.
918 people lost their lives, including hundreds of children, in the greatest tragedy of the loss of life of American citizens as of September 11, 2001.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up on Netflix.
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