Hulu is moving forward with its series adaptation of Erik Larson’s best-selling 2003 novel “Devil in the White City,” handing out a formal series order for the project, which has Keanu Reeves, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese all onboard.
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 in which Reeves will star in what will be his largest TV role to date. DiCaprio and Scorsese will executive produce alongside Rick Yorn, Sam Shaw, Jennifer Davisson and Stacey Sher. Shaw (“Castle Rock”) is on board as writer and showrunner.
DiCaprio is not expected to have an on-screen role as of this time. Todd Field is set to direct the series with Paramount TV Studios, ABC Signature and Appian Way backing the adaptation.
Source: THR
