Chloë Grace Moretz and Joseph Gordon-Levitt will star for FilmNation and Archer Gray in the cult thriller and hot EFM sales title White Night.
Anne Sewitsky, whose credits include Sundance 2011 grand jury prize-winner Happy, Happy and BBC/Amazon Studios mini-series A Very British Scandal, will direct the story from William Wheeler’s adapted screenplay based on Deborah Layton’s memoir Seductive Poison.
Moretz will play Layton, who joins the People’s Temple, the notorious cult led by minister Jim Jones (Gordon Levitt) and rises through the ranks and gains access to Jones’s inner circle in a bid to expose the truth about him to the world before it is too late.
Jones established “Jonestown” at a South American agricultural settlement in Guyana in 1974 as an extension of his San Francisco-based cult. Four years later, on November 18 1978, more than 900 people died after drinking poison in what remains one of the largest mass murder-suicides on record.
FilmNation is financing White Night and producing with Archer Gray and will commence worldwide sales at the virtual market.
Production is scheduled to begin in spring. Archer Gray CEO Amy Nauiokas said Seductive Poison was the first book the company optioned adding: “It should serve as warning about the power a certain type of charismatic leader can have and the very real lessons to be learned from our history.”
“Entering Jim Jones’ magnetic orbit through the eyes of an idealistic, passionate young woman reminded us that anyone can fall victim to extremism, given the right circumstances,” said FilmNation president of production Ashley Fox. “Anne’s urgent, thrilling vision for the film will make White Night a propulsive, immersive experience for this moment, while being the definitive portrayal of this timeless story.”
Most recently Moretz starred in the thriller Mother/Android and currently serves as an executive producer on Snapchat’s Discover series Coming Out.
Gordon-Levitt most recently started in the Apple TV+ series Mr. Corman and will next be seen as Uber founder Travis Kalanick in the Showtime limited series Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. He will soon be featured as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Robert Zemeckis’s live-action adaptation of Pinocchio.
On Tuesday Screen first reported that FilmNation has boarded international sales for EFM on upcoming sci-fi Proxy to star Blake Lively with Pieces Of A Woman director Kornel Mundruczo set to direct.
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