It has been over two decades. Erik Larson published his masterpiece, The Devil in the White City, back in 2003, and since then, the quest to bring the World’s Fair and the "Murder Castle" to the screen has been nothing short of a curse. Fans of the book—and there are millions of us—have been teased with a Devil in the White City film or series for what feels like a lifetime.
Honestly, it’s a mess.
You’ve got Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, and Keanu Reeves all tied to this project at various points, yet here we are, still staring at the book on our shelves instead of a trailer on YouTube. The story itself is a cinematic goldmine: the dual narrative of Daniel Burnham, the brilliant architect behind the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and H.H. Holmes, the terrifying pharmacist who used the fair to lure victims into his elaborate death trap. It is high-brow history meets low-brow gore. So, why is it stuck in development hell?
A Timeline of Broken Dreams and High Hopes
The rights have bounced around like a pinball. Initially, Leonardo DiCaprio bought the film rights in 2010. He was obsessed. He wanted to play H.H. Holmes, which, let’s be real, would have been incredible. DiCaprio excels at playing charming, calculated men with dark centers. Think The Wolf of Wall Street but with more taxidermy and less Quaaludes.
By 2015, things looked solid. Martin Scorsese signed on to direct. The duo that gave us The Departed and Shutter Island tackling 19th-century Chicago? It seemed like a guaranteed Oscar sweep. But years passed. Scripts were written, then scrapped. The scale of the project was just too massive for a two-hour window. How do you build the "White City" on a movie budget without it looking like a cheap CGI screensaver? You basically can't.
That's when the shift happened.
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Hulu jumped in. They decided a Devil in the White City film wasn't enough; it needed to be a high-budget limited series. This made sense. It gave the story room to breathe. In 2022, Keanu Reeves was officially cast as Daniel Burnham. It was his first major TV role. The internet went wild. Then, just as quickly as it started, it fell apart. Reeves dropped out. Director Todd Field dropped out. Hulu eventually pulled the plug.
Why the Story is So Hard to Film
The problem isn't the material. The material is perfect. The problem is the balance.
If you focus too much on Daniel Burnham and the architectural struggle of the Chicago World’s Fair, you lose the "Devil" part of the title. It becomes a dry history lesson about swamp drainage and neoclassical facades. If you focus too much on H.H. Holmes, it becomes just another slasher flick, losing the grandeur and the "White City" contrast that makes Larson's book so unique.
Erik Larson’s genius was in the juxtaposition. He showed how the greatest achievements of the Gilded Age happened simultaneously with its greatest horrors. Capturing that on film requires a specific kind of tonal gymnastics.
- The Scale: Recreating the 1893 Fair requires enormous sets.
- The Violence: H.H. Holmes' "Murder Castle" had gas lines, airtight rooms, and a crematorium. Filming that without it feeling like a Saw movie is a challenge.
- The Structure: The book alternates chapters between two men who never actually meet. In a movie, audiences usually expect the protagonist and antagonist to clash. Here, they are linked only by the city itself.
The Reality of H.H. Holmes vs. the Legend
A big hurdle for any Devil in the White City film is the historical truth. In recent years, historians like Adam Selzer (author of H.H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil) have pointed out that many of the stories about Holmes were wildly exaggerated by yellow journalism at the time.
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Was there a "Murder Castle"? Yes. Was it a labyrinth with trap doors and acid vats exactly as described in the sensationalist papers? Maybe not to that extreme.
Holmes was definitely a serial killer and a prolific con artist, but the myth has grown so large that a film has to decide whether it wants to be a "True Crime" biopic or a Gothic horror fantasy. If you go too realistic, you lose the spooky "castle" elements people want. If you go too far into the horror, you lose the historical prestige. Producers are likely terrified of getting it wrong and facing the wrath of both history buffs and horror fans.
Who is Still Involved?
As of now, the project is "in development" but essentially adrift. Appian Way (DiCaprio’s production company) and Sikelia Productions (Scorsese’s company) are still attached as producers.
Reports suggest that the team is still shopping the project to other streamers. With the success of big-budget historical dramas like Oppenheimer or Killers of the Flower Moon, there is clearly an appetite for long, complex stories. The Devil in the White City film might eventually find a home at Apple TV+ or Netflix, where budgets are high and "prestige" is the name of the game.
Honestly, at this point, I’d settle for an animated version if it meant we finally got to see it.
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What You Can Do While You Wait
Since you won't be seeing a trailer for the Devil in the White City film this month, there are ways to scratch that itch. You have to look at the sources and the "spiritual" successors.
- Read the book again. No, seriously. Larson’s prose is better than any screenplay that has been leaked so far.
- Check out 'The Alienist' on Max. It captures that late 19th-century griminess perfectly.
- Visit Chicago. If you're in the Midwest, go to Jackson Park. Most of the White City is gone, but the Museum of Science and Industry is the only major building left standing from the fair. Standing in that space gives you a sense of scale that no CGI can replicate.
- Listen to 'American Villain: The Bunny Man' or similar podcasts. They dive into the same era of American gothic horror.
The tragedy of the Devil in the White City film is that it is a victim of its own potential. It’s such a "big" idea that everyone is afraid to make it anything less than a masterpiece. Until someone is willing to take a massive financial risk on a period-piece serial killer epic, we remain in limbo.
If you want to stay updated on the production, keep an eye on industry trades like Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. Avoid the fan-made trailers on YouTube; they're all just clips from The Great Gatsby and From Hell mashed together. They’ll only break your heart.
To truly understand the landscape, look into the production history of Martin Scorsese's other long-gestating projects. He often waits decades to get a film right—Silence took almost 30 years. This project isn't dead; it's just hibernating in the shadows of the Windy City.