True Confession: after gobbling up all five seasons of Breaking Bad, I have yet to check out Better Call Saul, which I hear is excellent. I'm getting around to it! Alas, there's just too much good TV out there, and Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan unfortunately isn't helping.
Case in point: Gilligan is now developing a limited series about cult leader Jim Jones with his Breaking Bad exec-producer Michelle MacLaren, who directed several of the AMC series' greatest episodes. (It's also being executive produced by Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer.) There is literally no way I'm not watching this.
Titled Raven, the series will trace the origins of Jones's religious movement The Peoples Temple through its horrific end in November 1978, when 918 members of the group, including 276 children, died in a mass murder/suicide at their Jonestown settlement in northwestern Guyana. Prior to the massacre, United States Congressman Leo Ryan — who was visiting the site as part of a government investigation — and four others were murdered under Jones's orders.
Raven was also the title of a 1982 book on The Peoples Temple written by journalist Tim Reiterman, who accompanied Ryan on his fateful trip and suffered a gunshot wound on the airstrip where Ryan was killed. It does not appear that the Gilligan-MacLaren series is directly based on Reiterman's account.
Gilligan will write and MacLaren will direct the series for HBO.
[Variety]