Long-delayed DiCaprio/Scorsese serial killer film Devil in the White City back on track
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The actor and director have wanted to film the true story of murders at the 1893 World’s Fair for more than a decade, and reports suggest it is back in pre-production. The long-gestating period serial killer film The Devil in the White City, which for almost a decade has been a mooted collaboration between Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese, is reportedly on the way to production, it has been reported.
According to Deadline, the project is now set up with Hollywood studio 20th Century, which since 2019 has been a subsidiary of Disney after its purchase of Rupert Murdoch’s film and TV studio 20th Century Fox. Adapted from Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, it is about notorious murderer HH Holmes, who is alleged to have tortured and killed dozens of victims, mostly in his “Murder Castle” in Chicago in the 1890s in the run-up to the 1893 World’s Fair. (Holmes was tried and executed in 1896 for a single killing, of his accomplice Benjamin Pitezel.).
DiCaprio acquired the rights to Larson’s book in 2010, and Scorsese’s involvement was revealed in 2015, shortly after the pair had a substantial box office hit with the stocks trader comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. Although a script by Billy Ray had been completed, the film never materialised and in 2022 the project was converted to a TV series for US streaming platform Hulu, with Keanu Reeves in the lead role and Todd Field directing. It stalled again a year later after Reeves and Field left the project.
