A screen version of The Devil in the White City has flickered back to life. Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s project to adapt Erik Larson’s 2003 best-selling book about the Columbian Exposition, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, has been on-again, off-again for fifteen years. Hulu pulled the plug on a proposed miniseries in March of 2023, and all has been dark since then. (A history of the screen project can be found here.)

Deadline, Variety, Entertainment Weekly, and other media outlets reported this week that 20th Century Studios has picked up the project for development as a theatrical feature-length film. The studio is in talks with Scorsese to direct and DiCaprio to star—though whether he would portray Daniel Burnham or H.H. Holmes (or someone else?) is not known at this time. Joining them as co-producers are Stacey Sher, Rick Yorn and Jennifer Davisson, who have been associated with the project for many years. The film does not yet have a script.

The Devil in the White City could become the seventh Scorsese film starring DiCaprio. The two worked together on Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).