THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY
plans for a screen adaptation
of Erik Larson’s book
Latest News
January 22, 2025: 20th Century Studios picks up The Devil in the White City as a feature film.
March 6, 2023: Hulu dropped plans to produce The Devil in the White City TV miniseries.
August 29, 2022: “According to a recent listing in Production Weekly, the series is reportedly scheduled to begin filming in March 2023 and will be filmed entirely in Chicago. Exact filming dates and locations have yet to be disclosed at this time.” [ReelChicago.com]
Development of Devil in the White City
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. The series is being produced by Paramount TV Studios, ABC Signature, and Appian Way. Hulu canceled their plans in March 2023, but ABC Signature remains committed to the drama and will be shopping the show to new outlets.
Credits
Cast
Keanu Reeves as Daniel Burnham(confirmed 8/4/2022) (exited 10/7/2022)- Matt Damon?
- Robert Pattison?
Producers
- Sam Shaw (show runner)
- Leonardo DiCaprio
- Martin Scorsese
- Keanu Reeves
- Jennifer Davisson
- Rick Yorn
- Stacey Sher
- Lila Byock
Todd Field(exited 10/10/2022)- Mark Lafferty
- ? Emma Koskoff
Writers
Directors
Todd Field reportedly will direct the first two episodes. (out 10/10/2022)
More Information
Internet Movie Database (IMDB) page for the miniseries The Devil in the White City
Posts about Erik Larson’s 2003 book, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
“A blazing, colorful panorama.” Edith Ogden Harrison remembers the 1893 World’s Fair
As the daughter-in-law of Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., Edith Ogden Harrison had a front-seat view of the 1893 World’s Fair. Born in New Orleans on November 16, 1862, Edith married Carter Harrison, Jr. in 1887. While he walked in his father’s footsteps, serving as mayor of Chicago from 1897–1905 and 1911–1915, Mrs. Harrison was prolific author of children’s fairy tales. Fifty-six years after the close of the Fair [...]
Arkansas exhibits at the 1893 World’s Fair
A female architect designed the Arkansas State Building for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The state’s displays at the Fair included a fountain made of crystals (also designed by a woman) and a 14,000-pound piece of zinc and inspired the writing of the song “My Happy Little Home in Arkansas.” Read more in “Arkansas A–Z: From middling to mighty — State’s hand in World’s Fairs” by Guy Lancaster, the Arkansas [...]
Hiding the pickle at the 1893 World’s Fair
The dramatic merchandizing showcased at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition included a quirky subset of exhibits that might be described as “a blank made out of blank.” Much of it involved playing with food. Visitors could admire a Liberty Bell made out of citrus fruit, a Knight on horseback made out of prunes, a landscape painting made out of cereals and grasses, and a Venus de Milo statue made [...]
Childe Hassam painting of the 1893 World’s Fair sells for $44,000
American impressionist painter Childe Hassam (1859–1935) created several paintings of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition fairgrounds. He visited Chicago for the first time in 1892 to prepare his works that depicted what the World’s Fair would look like when open the following year. He also exhibited five oil paintings and five watercolors in the Palace of Fine Arts. An original 1893 World’s Fair painting by Hassam sold for $44,000 [...]
145. Picturesque World’s Fair – West Main Entrance of the Manufactures Building
WEST MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE MANUFACTURES BUILDING.—Columbia Avenue, the great thoroughfare which extended north and south through the Manufactures Building, was crossed at the center by a similar broad way, and. this interior street where it terminated at the west afforded exit upon a particularly beautiful scene. Across the North Canal and at the entrance to the East Lagoon a bridge extended, over which passed and repassed the throng [...]
Singles Night at the 1893 World’s Fair
In the era before dating apps, how were singles to meet? One Chicagoan in 1893 proposed a special day on the fairgrounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition for not-so-young-and-still-unattached visitors. The October 21, 1893, issue of the Chicago Inter Ocean carried the following Letter to the Editor, signed “A. LS.” (presumably one of the “autumn lassies” mentioned in the letter?). Although the Fair held many “special days”—for groups ranging [...]
When hunger overtakes visitors on the 1893 fairgrounds, they are in danger
We’re all feeling the pain of soaring food prices today. They did back in 1893, too. Visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition were shocked by the cost food on the fairgrounds and frustrated by not being able to find a bill of fare before ordering in the restaurant concessions. The complaints pilled up thick in the first few weeks of the Exposition in May, especially at the White [...]
1893 World’s Fare in Downtown Chicago
The 1893 World’s Fair is the puported theme of three new food and drink establishments in downtown Chicago in September 2022. Kinsley, a new restaurant and bar in the One North Wacker building, promises to evoke a “spirit of innovation and diversity, inspired by the ultimate Fairgrounds of old, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and its gleaming White City.” The name comes from famed Chicago restaurateur Herbert M. Kinsley, [...]
“It will take two years to see it all”
When Barney Fredendall from Guilderland, New York, returned home from his visit to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, he commented that “it will take two years to see it all.” In her article "In 1892, Columbus was celebrated in big Chicago fair and by school children locally," Mary Ellen Johnson describes other impressions of the Columbian Exposition from the pages of the Altamont Enterprise newspaper. “The matter [...]
144. Picturesque World’s Fair – Interior of the Electricity Building
INTERIOR OF THE ELECTRICITY BUILDING.—How the world advances was perhaps better illustrated in the Electricity Building than in any other of the great structures on the grounds. At no previous exposition had there ever been a structure set apart for electrical exhibits and at none could there have been anything like the display here made. The marvelous advance in the use of electricity has been accomplished since Philadelphia and [...]