- Bill Hader reportedly set to co-write, produce, direct and star in new series
- Series will be Hader’s first major project since Barry
- Jonestown was the settlement of a religious cult led by Jim Jones
Bill Hader and HBO appear set to collaborate again, with the Barry star being tipped to co-write, direct and potentially star in a new project about Jonestown.
Hader – who co-created, directed and starred in dark tragicomedy Barry for HBO between 2018-2023 – received a deluge of plaudits for his work on the show, twice winning an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in the process.
Now, it appears the Superbad star is set to drink the Kool-Aid and get to work on a series based around Jonestown.
As per Variety, Hader and Daniel Zelman are reportedly developing a project for HBO on the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. The cult, led by Jim Jones, settled in a remote region of Guyana in 1976, establishing it as Jonestown. In November, 1978, however, over 900 members of the Peoples Temple died after drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.
Jones and several other members had referred to the act as a ‘revolutionary suicide’ ahead of time, although the Temple members were also faced by armed guards to ensure they took the poison.
Who Was Jim Jones?
Jim Jones (who could be the character played by Bill Hader, potentially) was a pentecostal preacher. He rose to prominence by participating in the Latter Rain movement and Healing Revival during the 1950s. Born in Crete, Indiana in 1931, Jones founded what would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955.
Moving the Temple to San Francisco in 1965, Jones become heavily involved in civil rights activism and political and charitable activity, continuing into the 1970s. At its peak, the Peoples Temple had over 3,000 members. However, despite his affiliations with Californian politicians and appointment as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975, Jones made plenty of powerful enemies.
Jones rejected traditional Christianity, promoted his own form of anti-capatalism known as Apostolic Socialism and even claimed himself to be divine. Jones’ ego continued to spiral and reports of abuse towards congregation members became more widespread.
The communal lifestyle of Temple members saw them hand over their income and property to Jones, who controlled every aspect of their lives. In 1974, amid the controversies within the Temple and issues with the United States government, Jones ordered the construction of Jonestown on the Caribbean island of Guyana in South America.
Bill Hader to Bring The Jonestown Massacre to Life?
Having convinced a large number of members to flee to Guyana with him, Jones had them construct the settlement in 1976. His vision was for a socialist paradise free from US government oppression.
However, by 1978, reports of human rights abuses began to leak out of the cult. It was believed several members were being held against their will in Jonestown. These reports led to an investigation headed up by Leo Ryan, who represented California’s 11th congressional district. Ryan had been friends with Temple member Bob Houston. However, Houston’s mutilated body had been found near train tracks in October, 1976, only three days after a taped telephone conversation with his wife in which leaving the Temple had been mentioned.
In November, 1978, Ryan touched down in Georgetown, Guyana. Him and his delegation were initially refused entry to Jonestown. The following morning, Jones was informed Ryan would head for Jonestown anyway. Arriving at an airstrip at Port Kaituma, a few miles outside Jonestown, Ryan and his delegation were eventually welcomed into Jonestown.
Defectors and the Airstrip Ambush
Once inside, the delegation were treated to a musical reception. It was later discovered, however, that Jones had led members through rehearsals in order to convince Ryan and company that life was fine in Jonestown. That night, though, two Temple members, Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, made efforts to defect. They passed a note to NBC reporter Don Harris, mistaking him for Ryan. The note read, “Dear Congressman, Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby. Please help us get out of Jonestown.”
Eleven more Temple members left Jonestown the following morning, with more requesting to leave in the afternoon. Eventually, there were so many defectors wanting to depart Jonestown, Ryan and his party needed to charter a second plane as their first would have been overcapacity for the flight back to Georgetown, Guyana’s capital city.
As Ryan’s plane was set to depart from the airstrip, the Temple’s Red Brigade security squad surrounded them and opened fire with handguns, shotguns and rifles. The first few seconds of the shooting were captured by NBC cameraman Bob Brown, who was killed along with numerous others, including Temple defector Patricia Parks. Ryan was killed after being shot more than twenty times.
Following the murder of the congressman and several members of his delegation, Jones, who was suffering from a severe decline in physical and mental health, told attorney Charles Garry “all is lost” and believed he had failed. Jones set about recording a 44 minute ‘death tape’.
Recorded inside the Jonestown pavillion, Jones can be heard saying on the tape, “One of those people on that plane is gonna shoot the pilot, I know that. I didn’t plan it but I know it’s gonna happen. They’re gonna shoot that pilot and down comes the plane into the jungle and we had better not have any of our children left when it’s over, because they’ll parachute in here on us.”
Jones then made a call for all members to commit suicide by drinking Flavor Aid (often mistaken as Kool-Aid) laced with poisonous chemicals, including cyanide. However, gathered Temple members were faced by armed guards, meaning the suicides were essentially forced as anyone resisting the poison would have been shot to death anyway.
Several parents took the lives of their own children by feeding them the poison as part of the mass suicide. Jones himself was found with a gunshot wound to his temple, consistent with a self inflicted wound. In Jonestown, 909 people were found dead with another nine dying at the Port Kaituma airstrip and a Temple run building in Georgetown.
Given his imperious work on a work as dark as Barry, Bill Hader feels like an ideal choice to do justice to such a bleak event in American history.
The Jonestown Massacre has recently been referenced as part of a storyline in Seth Rogen’s The Studio, on Apple TV. In the show, Martin Scorsese pitches the idea for his final movie to be based on the massacre. Studio head Rogen agrees to the idea, with the title Kool-Aid, as his studio have just signed a deal to produce a Kool-Aid movie.
Bill Hader presumably would actually like to get his version made, though, unlike Scorsese, who is left in floods of tears upon the realisation Rogen has opted for another director to make a family friendly Kool-Aid film and has permanently shelved Scorsese’s.
