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
“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 [...]
THE LADY OF THE LAKE by Julian Hawthorne Part III: Curiosities of the Midway Plaisance
Author Julian Hawthorne visited the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Reprinted below is the third part of Julian Hawthorne’s “The Lady of the Lake” about his June visit to the fairgrounds and published in the August 1893 issue of Lippincott’s Magazine. The previous installments can be found in Part I and Part II. [NOTE: By today’s standards, some of Hawthorne’s remarks about the Midway Plaisance and citizens of the [...]
THE LADY OF THE LAKE by Julian Hawthorne Part II: A Pure Delight of the Soul
Author Julian Hawthorne visited the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Reprinted below is the second part of Julian Hawthorne’s “The Lady of the Lake” about his June visit to the fairgrounds and published in the August 1893 issue of Lippincott’s Magazine. Part 1 can be found here. THE LADY OF THE LAKE by Julian Hawthorne The Palace of Fine Arts depicted in “Art Palace from the Southwest” [...]
THE LADY OF THE LAKE by Julian Hawthorne Part I: Sculpture in the Grand Basin
Julian Hawthorne (June 22, 1846 – July 21, 1934) was the only son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and himself a journalist and author. Julian Hawthorne’s biographer notes that “as an author, he far exceeded the literary production of his famous father, composing no less than twenty-six novels and romances, over sixty short stories, almost a hundred essays, and several lengthy works of history, biography, and autobiography.” [Bassan, Maurice Hawthorne’s [...]
Ice and Snow on the Midway Plaisance
Here's some cool news from the July 8, 1893, Chicago Dispatch: Yesterday the thermometer nearly reached the one hundredth degree mark, and to-day is not much cooler, yet amidst this sultry heat of midsummer many thousands of visitors to the Midway Plaisance can, and many did, enjoy the enviable pleasure of a genuine sleigh ride on pure white snow. Not imitation snow, but the pure crystal itself. It is [...]
The World’s Fair in a Cup of Cocoa
An advertisement for Blooker's Cocoa from Harper's Weekly in 1893. This is a good day to enjoy a cup of hot cocoa and think about the 1893 World’s Fair. In a contemporary magazine advertisement promoting their distribution of Blooker’s Dutch Cocoa, the Franco-American Food Company offered this copy: “The Columbian Exposition will soon be a thing of the past. Thousands of people who have visited the White [...]
Chicago Magazine Recalls the “Indecent Undulations” on the Midway Plaisance
A photograph of "Egyptian Dancing Girls" from Picturesque World’s Fair shows more modest attire than is often described for the "belly dancer" show on the Midway. The February 2019 issue of Chicago Magazine offers a historical survey of baring skin in the Windy City. “Unbuttoning Chicago’s History of Covering Up” opens with the 1893 World’s Fair, summarizing how the “belly dancers” in the Street in Cairo exhibit on [...]