Five months after both actor Keanu Reeves and filmmaker Todd Field exited the project, Hulu has officially ditched its planned series adaptation of Erik Larson’s “The Devil in the White City”.
Sources for THR indicate whilst Hulu has let go of the property, producers ABC Signature remain committed to the drama and will be shopping the show to new outlets.
In addition, before its scrapping deals were reportedly nearly in place for both Jude Law and “The Bear” star Jeremy Allen White to take the lead roles and for Matt Ross (“Gaslit”) to direct.
The long-gestating project, which is to be executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, was first put into development at Hulu in 2019 and officially ordered to series in August last year.
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.
Rick Yorn, Jennifer Davisson, Stacy Sher, Sam Shaw, Lila Byock and Mark Lafferty also serve as executive producers.
Source: THR
