A prestigious series project has apparently been scrapped: “The Devil in the White City”, a mini-series that was to be produced by Leonardo DiCaprio (48) and Martin Scorsese (80), among others, was dropped by the US streaming service Hulu, as reported by the industry website “Deadline”. Actually, a start was planned for the coming year.
In fact, the project had been struggling with problems for a long time. Keanu Reeves (58), who originally agreed to play one of the leading roles, left in October last year. Shortly thereafter, “The Devil in the White City” lost its designated star director in the person of Todd Field (59, “Tár”). Attempts to adequately replace the two have failed. Despite this setback, ABC Signature, the TV production department, still hopes to eventually find a home for the miniseries on another streaming service.
According to the report, DiCaprio had already acquired the rights to the book of the same name by Erik Larson (69) in 2010. Initially, the plan was to adapt the bestseller into a film that Scorsese would have directed. Finally, in 2019, it was announced that Hulu wanted to turn the template into an expensive series.
The book template “The Devil in the White City” takes place at the end of the 19th century and tells, among other things, the stories of real men Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912) and H. H. Holmes (1861-1896). Burnham is considered a visionary architect and urban planner who made a name for himself in 1893 by designing the Chicago World’s Fair and various high-rise buildings in New York.
Henry Howard Holmes entered the history books in a much more negative way: He was one of the first serial killers in the USA, and morbid legends are entwined around him. In pop culture he is known for his so-called “Murder Castle”, a house in which various murder traps are said to have been located. Corresponding sensational reports from that time, however, were relegated to the realm of fables.
