With the Ku Klux Klan back in the headlines in the States thanks to the organization endorsing Donald Trump and a demonstration that turned violent last weekend, the plan by Joseph Gordon-Levitt's hitRECord Films and Amazon to explore the birth of the hate group is a timely one.
Gordon-Levitt has set a film known as K Troop up at the company, and may end up starring if it all comes together. Set in post-Civil War 1865, the KKK first rose in the American South, only to be all but stomped out by an elite division of the US Army called, as the movie's title suggests, K Troop. Gordon-Levitt has his eye on the main role of Major Lewis Merrill, the leader of the division. An enigmatic man and brilliant military strategist, Merrill built a network of informants, including a number of local African Americans, who risked their lives to figure out the secretive workings of the KKK.
An upcoming article by Slate website writer Matthew Pearl is the source material for this one, and the next step will be to find a writer for the project. Gordon-Levitt will next be seen in Oliver Stone's Snowden, which recently moved to a September 16 release in the States but has no set date for the UK yet.