After over a decade of The Devil in the White City dragging its feet, leaping from film to TV series, and not getting started on shooting, Hulu has declared “enough is enough”, and pulled the plug on the Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio-produced television series.
Sources have told The Hollywood Reporter that the Disney-backed streaming service has dropped the series which was once set to star Jude Law and Jeremy Allen White (and once upon a time, Keanu Reeves). However, the production company behind the series, ABC Signature, plans to shop it around to other networks and buyers to pick it back up.
Like Reeves, Tár director Todd Field was initially involved with The Devil in the White City before dropping out of the project and being replaced by Matt Ross. According to THR’s sources, Law, White, and Ross are still in talks to be involved with the series, but given the project’s current precariousness, nothing is set in stone.
The Devil in the White City is an adaptation of a period drama set in the late 1800s based on a historical non-fiction book of the same title (written in the style of a novel) by Erik Larson, telling the tale of one of America’s first serial killers, H.H Holmes, as well as architect Daniel Burnham.
The film rights to the book were purchased by DiCaprio back in 2010, and was originally supposed to be a movie in which he starred and Scorsese directed. The adaptation then pivoted to a television series, which Hulu picked up in 2019.
Perhaps if Martin Scorsese spent less time trashing blockbuster film franchises (though he may have had a point), he and his The Wolf of Wall Street pal Leo wouldn’t be back to square one.