ABC Signs Deal for TV Movie on Suicide Cult

“Heaven’s Gate: The Movie” may soon be coming to the small screen.

Reversing its previous stance, ABC said Thursday that it has signed a deal with the Kushner-Locke Co. and InterAct Entertainment Inc. to produce a TV movie focusing on the Heaven’s Gate cult and the 39 members who committed suicide last week in Rancho Santa Fe.

The proposed film would center on the account of Richard Ford, the lone survivor of Heaven’s Gate who left the cult four weeks before the members killed themselves. Ford, a former set designer who was known in the cult as Rio D’Angelo, discovered the bodies and notified authorities of the mass suicide.

Kushner-Locke Co-Chairman Peter Locke said the film will be “a spiritual and compelling story that will allow viewers to find out what really happened. We have the person who knows everything. People are fascinated by this. It’s a fascinating thing.”

The deal marks a surprising and abrupt turnaround for ABC, which until Thursday had insisted that it was not developing a movie about the cult. The network had echoed the sentiments of CBS, NBC and Fox in indicating that such a project was either tasteless or had little dramatic value or conflict.

Other than confirming the movie deal, ABC declined to comment.

But the announcement of the project coincides with the announcement that Ford will do an exclusive televised interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that will air on Wednesday’s “PrimeTime Live.”

ABC News executives insisted there was no connection between the exclusive interview and the deal for the film.

“There was absolutely no connection, and the news division was not aware that talks with the movie division were going on,” said Eileen Murphy, associate director of media relations for the network’s news division. “At the same time, we cannot ignore a legitimate news interview because there is a conflict.”

Both deals were arranged by Beverly Hills businessman Nick Matzorkis of InterAct, who will serve as executive producer of the film. While negotiating with ABC News, he told producers there that he was also seeking a movie deal, “but we told him we could not help him with that, could not get involved,” Murphy said.

ABC News joined forces with Newsweek magazine for the interview, she said. Newsweek is scheduled to have a cover story on Ford next week.

Matzorkis, who employs Ford as a computer programmer, said the “PrimeTime” interview was in place before the movie deal with ABC’s entertainment division was finalized Wednesday, and that there was no connection between the two.

A script has not yet been written and casting has yet to be set, but Matzorkis said he hopes the film will air in the fall.

Locke said there is no mandate to rush. “These things take their time. ABC will want the right property and the right film, and they will want it to be well done,” he said. “They want a wonderful project.”

Several producers and network executives had said following the tragedy that they were reluctant to develop a film about the mass suicide because it lacked dramatic conflict.

As D’Angelo, Ford had recently worked for Kushner-Locke developing, designing and updating the production company’s computer World Wide Web site. He subsequently joined InterAct’s in-house Web site design team.

Locke bristled at suggestions that his film might be seen by some as being exploitative.

“Remember Jim Jones and Jonestown? Remember David Koresh? This story isn’t in that category, and I don’t want to be put in that category,” Locke said. “We’re dealing with these people as productive human beings. This is not going to be tasteless.”

Matzorkis added: “We will stick to the human element. There’s not interest in a movie about a wacked-out cult.”