The KKK is making headlines — and, funny enough, not just from anything related to what Donald Drumpf will or won’t say. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is taking on the White supremacist hate group in a feature film for Amazon called K Troop.

According to THR, Gordon-Levitt will produce the film, which is set after the Civil War and focuses on the rise and development of the KKK in the American South. The actor is also eyeing the lead role of Major Lewis Merrill, the leader of the U.S. Army’s K Troop who worked with a network of informants to uncover the agenda of the KKK and stamped them out in 1871. The group would later rise again in the early 1900s and a third time during the Civil Rights era in the ‘50s. The film is based on an upcoming article from Slate writer Matthew Pearl, and the project is currently looking to bring a writer on board.


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News of K Troop comes as the KKK has been in the news, primarily due to David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK, who endorsed Drumpf for president. At the time, Drumpf refused to denounce Duke without doing proper research on him, though he eventually did so on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” saying in part, “I disavowed him in the past, I disavow him now.”

Meanwhile, K Troop is the latest addition to Gordon-Levitt’s growing list of upcoming projects. Following his performance of tight-rope walker Philippe Petit in The Walk, the actor will be see as Edward Snowden in Oliver Stone’s Snowden, which will now be released in theaters on September 16th. Gordon-Levitt will also working on a big-screen version of Fraggle Rock, an untitled musical comedy with Channing Tatum, and (though we haven’t heard any updates for a while) an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.


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Image via Pivot