It has been a long road for Devil in the White City. Some might say, a hellish one. The project began life over a decade ago when Leonardo DiCaprio secured rights to Erik Larson’s best-selling book in 2010. And in 2019, it seemed like a Hulu series might actually come to life for the story. In fact, Keanu Reeves was meant to star in The Devil in White City series for a time. But most recently, Reeves and Todd Field, the named director of the show, left the production. And now, having lost Reeves and more, the streamer has officially scrapped the series. The Devil in the White City will not move forward on Hulu and is, once again, back in limbo.
That’s a rough one, to be sure. At the height of its potential, the Hulu take on The Devil in the White City would have had Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese as the executive producers of the series and Keanu Reeves at its center. But even the promise of star power can’t always get a show over the hump. Deadline reports that ABC Signature remains committed to The Devil in the White City series and will look to find it a new home.
The logline for the now-canceled adaptation shares more about what we would have seen from The Devil in the White City series. It notes that:
The Devil in the White City tells the true story of Daniel H. Burnham, a demanding but visionary architect who races to make his mark on history with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and Dr. H. H. Holmes, America’s first modern serial killer and the man behind the notorious ‘Murder Castle’ built in the Fair’s shadow.
Reeves would have played Burnham before his departure. No casting for Holmes was officially revealed. We guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens next with this tale. But we can’t help but feel like this production might be a little cursed by the ghosts that surround it.
