Bill Hader has gotten HBO to take a big sip of Flavor Aid. Variety has announced that the comedian and studio are pairing up to move forward on a series centered around the Peoples Temple leader, Jim Jones, and the tragic events that took place at the compound known as Jonestown. Hader is working alongside Daniel Zelman on the project, with the Saturday Night Live alum also reportedly in talks to don a pair of shades and step into the role of the unhinged cult leader. The duo of creatives will co-showrun, co-write, and executive produce, with Hader taking on even more responsibilities as the title’s director.

The fascination with the events that went down in Guyana back in 1978 has been an obsession in the decades since, with authors penning books and filmmakers helming feature-length productions based on the harrowing story. A Jonestown-centered project has long been percolating in Hollywood, with Breaking Bad’s Vince Gilligan leading the charge at HBO nearly a decade ago. Back in 2022, it was announced that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would take on the dark personality of Jones in a movie titled White Night that also seems to have stalled out. Like the adaptation of Erik Larson’s book, The Devil in the White City, it has seemed like a dramatized version of Jonestown’s story until now.

The True Story Behind Jonestown

There are few cults that can say this, but in the beginning, Jones was actually on to something good. With an open mindset, the future cult leader started out as a minister who used his Peoples Temple (which started in Indianapolis in the mid-1950s) as a place that served its community. It was a haven for those on the outskirts of life and initially helped people in need. There was no one thing that turned Jones into a cult leader, but instead a slow-burning series of events that served as his villain origin story.

By the time he set up the Jonestown commune in Guyana in 1974, things had very much gone off the rails. Using fear as his primary tactic, he convinced his followers that the U.S. government was against them and that — in order to continue to live freely and carry out their ministry — they would need to move out of the country. Fueled by drugs and his god complex, Jones became exceedingly paranoid so, when U.S. representative, Leo Ryan, showed up at the compound to investigate reports of inhumane conduct and folks held against their will, all hell broke loose. By the end of Ryan’s visit, he and four others would be killed by Jonestown gunmen, but the headline-making story of Jonestown comes from the group suicide of 909 members of the cult who died by consuming Flavor Aid with cyanide. Yes, Flavor Aid — not Kool-Aid, contrary to the famous saying and pop culture references, including the one recently made in The Studio.

With a Jonestown production finally on the horizon, we can’t wait to see what Hader and HBO come up with. Just please, we beg of you, get the Flavor Aid right.

via Collider