MGM has optioned author Jeff Guinn’s ‘The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple.’

It’s something many authors dream about: writing a bestselling book and selling it to the movies. For Fort Worth-based Jeff Guinn, it just came true. His 2017 book, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, is heading to Hollywood, and Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio wants to play Jones. “I have been informed that an agreement has been made,” Guinn says.

DiCaprio and Guinn each served as executive producers of Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle, a documentary series that aired in 2018. “I’m just so pleased that he liked the Jim Jones book enough that he wanted to do the documentary but that he also feels it should be a straight motion picture,” Guinn says. “I am very pleased that he thought enough of the book that he wanted it to be the source material.”

The movie has been optioned by MGM for DiCaprio, according to Guinn’s literary agent, Jim Donovan. No one knows yet when shooting will begin or the film will be released. Scott Rosenberg has been chosen to write the adapted screenplay and is working on it now, Donovan says.

Guinn, meanwhile, has already turned his attention to a different tale, with similar themes. Tuesday marked the official release of his latest book, Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage.