“I believe our adventure through time has taken a most serious turn.”

Deadline and other news outlets are reporting that Keanu Reeves (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures, The Matrix) is in talks to star in The Devil in the White City limited series being produced for Hulu.

The show will be an adaptation of Erik Larson’s best-selling 2003 non-fiction book that interweaves the true stories of renowned architect Daniel H. Burnham struggling to build the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park, and the notorious H. H. Holmes, (allegedly) America’s first serial killer who launched a gruesome murder spree from his “Murder Castle” in a nearby Chicago neighborhood at the time of the World’s Fair.

There’s no word yet on which role Reeves may be entering, but it would be his first in a major U.S. television show. If not in the lead role of the devilish Holmes, he may do well as the prolific-but-troubled architect Charles Atwood.

In 2021, reports surfaced that that both Matt Damon and Robert Pattinson were top choices for a lead role.

A film adaptation of The Devil in the White City was first developed by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner through their Cruise/Wagner company, but the option lapsed in 2004. Paramount acquired the film rights in 2007 and set it up with producers Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher. Leonardo DiCaprio bought the film rights to The Devil in the White City in 2010 and began developing it as a feature film for Paramount studios to be directed by Martin Scorsese with DiCaprio was set to star in the leading role of the killer Holmes. In 2019, the project changed to a big-budget miniseries for the streaming service Hulu. Serving alongside DiCaprio and Scorsese as executive producers are Emma Koskoff, Jennifer Davisson, Rick Yorn, and Stacey Sher. “Castle Rock” creator Sam Shaw will write the adaptation, and Todd Field reportedly will direct the first two episodes. The series is being produced by Paramount TV Studios, ABC Signature, and Appian Way.