Leonardo DiCaprio will add another biopic role to his long-running career. The Oscar-winning actor is set to play 1970s cult leader Jim Jones, the man responsible for the Jonestown Massacre, in a new film from MGM.
The role of Jones in the MGM film is just the latest real-life figure to be portrayed by DiCaprio. Some of the real-life figures that DiCaprio was fortunate enough to play throughout his career include King Louis XIV in The Man in the Iron Mask, politician J. Edgar Hoover in Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, Con man Frank Abagnale Jr. in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can, pilot/film producer/philanthropist Howard Hughes in director Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, stockbroker Jordan Belfort in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, and fur trapper Hugh Glass in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant (for which DiCaprio won his first Oscar for Best Actor).
The Hollywood Reporter has learned DiCaprio is currently in final talks to star as Jones in the MGM project. DiCaprio will also serve as producer for the film alongside Jennifer Davisson through their Appian Way banner production. MGM, the studio behind iconic franchises like Rocky and James Bond, eventually picked up the project in a pre-emptive deal. The film will be written by Scott Rosenberg, who will also receive an executive producer credit.
For those unfamiliar, the Jonestown Massacre on November 18th, 1978, resulted in the largest number of American civilian casualties in a single non-natural event before the 9/11 attacks. Jones, a white minister who preached unconventional progressive ideas, created the San Francisco-based religious group known as the People's Temple. Although praised by his followers for his alleged healing powers, Jones would eventually grow paranoid over the media scrutiny surrounding the Temple.
After relocating to a secluded South American jungle settlement in Guyana, Jones claimed 909 lives after advising his followers to drink poison. The tragic events would go on to inspire many books and documentaries, such as 2018's Truth and Lies: Jonestown, Paradise Lost, which is now available to stream on Hulu. DiCaprio's portrayal as Jim Jones will surely push him to new, yet darker territories, but the 46-year-old actor will no doubt deliver something truly spectacular.
As for his other upcoming projects, DiCaprio will star opposite Jennifer Lawrence, Dune star Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, and many more as a low-level astronomer in Adam McKay's Don't Look Up for Netflix. DiCaprio will also be reuniting with Scorsese on Killers of the Flower Moon for Apple TV Plus, a crime drama based on the murders of the Osage tribe in the 1920s. He will join Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons in that film, too.
The upcoming biopic from MGM is in early development.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter