Keanu Reeves has dropped out of plans to star in his first major American television role in the Hulu series adaptation of Erik Larson’s best-selling 2003 novel “The Devil in the White City”.
The long-gestating project, which is being executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, was first put into development at Hulu in 2019 and officially ordered to series in August.
Set against the backdrop of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the book tells the intertwining stories of fair architect Daniel H. Burnham and serial killer Henry H. Holmes, a charming sociopath who used a hotel he built near the fairgrounds to lure victims.
Complete with gas chamber and crematorium, Holmes would murder his victims and strip their skeletons to sell for medical and scientific study. Holmes killed at least twenty-seven people, mostly young women, though some say the number was closer to nearly two hundred.
A screen adaptation has been in the works, in one form or another, since the novel was published nearly twenty years ago. David Fincher was linked at one point, and for a while the project was set to be another Scorsese-Di Caprio team-up film at Paramount Pictures.
Now though, it has become a Hulu series version. Reeves was to play the Burnham role, whilst the Holmes role remains uncast. Rick Yorn, Sam Shaw, Mark Lafferty, Jennifer Davisson and Stacey Sher also executive produce while Shaw (“Castle Rock”) is on board as writer and showrunner.
The actor will soon be seen in “John Wick – Chapter 4” next year and recently appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” where he revealed that Ghost Rider would be the Marvel character he would most like to play.
Source: Variety
