Charles Manson film Manson Girls will finally start shooting in February

The cult leader of the murderous Manson Family is serving a life sentence

Long-planned Charles Manson drama, Manson Girls, is to start shooting early next year.

Directed by Susanna Lo, the film will centre on the group of women who became infatuated with the notorious leader of the murderous Manson Family.

Murderer Charles Manson in 1970 (Getty)

Now 79 and serving a life sentence in prison, Manson is preparing to wed one of his devoted fans, 25-year-old Star Burton, behind bars.

In 1971, he was found guilty for the Family’s murders of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant with director Roman Polanski's child when she was killed in her home with four others.

Manson Family victim Sharon Tate (Getty Images)

Many of the girls who committed to the cult Family in the Sixties were young adults at the time, including Leslie Van Houten, Lynette Fromme and Linda Kasabian.

Actresses Tania Raymonde, Monica Keena and Stella Maeve have all been cast in Manson Girls, with horror actor Bill Moseley on board to play Manson himself.

Eric Balfour will star as Bobby Beausoleil and Laura Harring will play Alice Rainer, a CNN news reporter who wants to tell the story of the girls during the anniversary of the murders.

The film will follow the girls’ pre-Manson years as relatively normal teenagers, through their indoctrination into the Family and the brutal summer of 1969, when Manson’s belief in an imminent apocalyptic race war he called ‘Helter Skelter’ led to bloody massacres.

Lo reportedly spent years researching the Family, but has never approached Manson himself. She first announced the project three years ago at Sundance but soon stumbled upon financial difficulties.

“We ended up getting a lot of press but nobody committed to presales,” she said, but now TriCoast have taken the global sales rights.

The production will shoot in Los Angeles and Georgia on a $2 million budget.