The Big Picture
- The Devil in the White City project is still in progress despite numerous delays and changes in casting and production partners.
- Producer Stacey Sher confirms that Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese are still involved in the long-awaited adaptation.
- The Hulu series version faced setbacks with changes in casting and director, ultimately leaving the project in limbo for now.
Despite many delays, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese‘s long-awaited adaptation of The Devil in the White City is still in the works. Producer Stacey Sher confirms that she is still working on the project. Sher gave the update in a new interview with Deadline for the upcoming Locarno Film Festival.
When asked if the series is coming soon, she replied “…I hope so. It’s not imminent, but it is not ever far from my mind.” She also confirms that producers DiCaprio, Scorsese, Rick Yorn, and Jen Davisson are still involved, as well. The long-delayed project is an adaptation of Erik Larson‘s 2003 non-fiction bestseller The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, which follows two parallel narratives in 1890s Chicago; the Herculean efforts by architect Daniel Burnham to mount the 1893 World’s Fair, and the depredations of serial killer H.H. Holmes, who killed a number of victims in a building later dubbed the “Murder Castle”. The project has been in development since the book’s publication, but has yet to bear fruit.
Why Is It Taking So Long To Make ‘The Devil in the White City’?
Upon the book’s publication, its rights were snapped up by Tom Cruise, but that project never came to fruition. DiCaprio acquired the rights to adapt the book in 2010; at the time, he intended to both produce the film and star as Holmes. In 2015, DiCaprio partnered with frequent collaborator Scorsese on the project, with Billy Ray attached to pen the script. By 2019, the project had metamorphosed into a Hulu series, with Scorsese and DiCaprio set to executive produce. It seemed to have a chance of getting made in 2022, when Keanu Reeves was set to star with Todd Field directing; however, Reeves and Field exited the project a year later. Earlier this year, Hulu announced that it would not be moving ahead with the series, leaving it in limbo.
In the interview, Sher discusses another seemingly-lost project; Quentin Tarantino‘s would-be final film, The Movie Critic. Although she can’t discuss why Tarantino abandoned the project – “He’d kill me if I told you why,” – she suggests it could live on in another form, akin to Tarantino’s novelization of his most recent film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Devil in the White City adaptation is still in the works; no release date has yet been announced. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
