Actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Chloe Grace Moretz have been roped in to star in the upcoming massacre drama titled White Night.

Gordon-Levitt will portray a cult leader named Jim Jones in the film about one of the largest murder suicides in history. Jones, a preacher, founded a religious organisation named People's Temple that existed between 1955 and 1978. Jones and his inner circle orchestrated 'the Jonestown Massacre', a mass murder-suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.

Meanwhile, Grace Moretz will play Deborah Layton, a member of Jones' inner circle. Based on Layton's bestselling memoir Seductive Poison, the film will centre on Layton's story of how she rose through the ranks of the organisation, only to turn on Jones and fight to expose the truth about him to the world.

Written by William Wheeler (The Ghost in the Shell), the film will be directed by Anne Sewitsky (of A Very British Scandal-fame).

White Night begins production in spring. FilmNation Entertainment produces the film with Archer Gray.