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
Virginia Claypool Meredith, the “The Queen of American Agriculture” on the Board of Lady Managers
“It is not likely that there will ever again be any distinction so artificial as that of sex between the skill of men and women--unlikely that there will ever again be a woman’s department in any World’s Fair.” --Virginia Meredith, from a speech given at the Indiana Union of Literary Clubs meeting, May 1892. [reprinted in Whitford, et al. The Queen of American Agriculture: A Biography of Virginia Claypool [...]
Woman’s Part at the World’s Fair, Part I
March is Women’s History Month and a fitting time to reflect on women’s valuable contributions to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Reprinted here is Part 1 of “Woman’s Part at the World’s Fair” from the May 1893 issue of The Review of Reviews. “The Work of the Board of Lady Managers” was written by one of its Vice Presidents, Virginia C. Meredith of Indiana. Parts 2 and 3 will [...]
Mar. 11, 2019: The Vanishing City–Excavating the World’s Fair (McHenry County Historical Society & Museum)
The McHenry County Historical Society & Museum will kick off its 33rd annual Sampler Lecture Series on Monday, March 11 with a look at the 1893 World’s Fair with “The Vanishing City: Excavating the World’s Fair.” Rebecca Graff, assistant professor of anthropology and chair of the American studies at Lake Forest College, divulges what is hiding beneath the future Obama Presidential Center site in Chicago. Jackson Park at one [...]
Mar. 23, 2019: Devil in the White City Bus Tour
Experience the murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America on a 4-hour bus tour offered by the Chicago History Museum on Saturday, March 23, 2019. (A second tour will be offered on April 13, 2019.) Inspired by Erik Larson’s best-selling book (soon to be a miniseries), this tour will take you back to 1893 with historian Al Walavich, to follow the trails of Daniel Burnham and the devilish doings [...]
How Should Chicago be Governed?
Chicago City Hall. [Image from Butterworth, Hezekiah Zigzag Journeys in the White City (Estes and Lauriat, 1894).] With the election for a new Mayor of Chicago on the horizon, citizens are demanding cleaner streets, a crackdown on crime and vice, and safer public transportation. The year was 1893. The mayoral election of the spring of 1893 would decide who would become the “World’s Fair Mayor” as the city [...]
Fair Floor Faces Foggy Future
A parquet floor in the William Witten Home in Highland Park, Illinois, came from the 1893 World’s Fair. [Image from the William Witten Home Facebook page.] Will an impending wrecking ball spare a rare craftsman floor from the 1893 World’s Fair? Following a story last year from the Chicago Tribune, CBS-2 Chicago reports that the William Walter Witten Home, at 1014 Central Avenue in Highland Park, Illinois, could be [...]
“Frederick Douglass’s Defiant Stand at Chicago’s World’s Fair”
February 14 is often listed as the birthday of Frederick Douglass, who late in life served as the Commissioner of the Haitian Republic. Daniel Hautzinger writes in “Frederick Douglass's Defiant Stand at Chicago's World's Fair” (WTTW, February 14, 2018) that “Frederick Douglass never knew the date of his own birth, or even how old he was … But the famous abolitionist and orator eventually chose to celebrate his birthday [...]
“Devil in the White City” to be a Hulu Mini Series
One man built a dream city on the shores of Lake Michigan, attracting tens of millions of visitors from around the world. Another built a nightmare hotel in a neighborhood near the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Erik Larson entwined the true stories of architect Daniel H. Burnham and serial killer H. H. Holmes into a fascinating narrative in his 2003 bestseller The Devil in the White City: [...]
Finding the Fair at the Field
In terms of quantity and quality, one of the greatest collections of objects from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition resides in the Field Museum in Chicago. The permanent collection is a treasure trove of unique and fascinating items from the 1893 Exposition. We visited the museums several times recently to take in some of the temporary exhibits having World’s Fair materials on display and share a few photos here. [...]
THE LADY OF THE LAKE by Julian Hawthorne Part IV: The Incomparable Loveliness of the Illuminations
Author Julian Hawthorne visited the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Like so many other visitors who recorded their impressions of visiting the World’s Fair, he offered some of his highest praise for the electrical lighting of the night scene in the Dream City, a “banquet of royal beauty.” Reprinted below is the fourth and final part of Julian Hawthorne’s “The Lady of the Lake” about his June visit [...]