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
Homesick in the German Village
The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 showcased many exciting attractions that were new and unusual to the tens of millions of visitors—electrical devices powered by mammoth dynamos, unfamiliar music and dance from Asian and African cultures, and a giant rotating observation tower. In some instances, though, fairgoers found comfort in the familiar, as in the case of when this immigrant ventured into German Village on the Midway Plaisance and [...]
World’s Fair bridge listed among “Chicago’s Most Endangered Buildings 2025”
Preservation Chicago released its “Most Endangered” list for 2025 (on March 4, Chicago's 188th birthday). Included with six threatened buildings is a bridge that allowed tens of millions of visitors to cross the Lagoon during the 1893 World’s Fair. Designed by renowned architectural firm of Burnham & Root, the bridge was built in 1880 and is the oldest extant structure of Frederick Law Olmsted’s original design for Jackson Park. [...]
Mar. 24, 2025: “Fashion, Ferris Wheels, and Film: Dressing Women for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair” (Crest Hill, IL)
The White Oak Library District Crest Hill Branch is hosting a talk on “Fashion, Ferris Wheels, and Film: Dressing Women for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair” on March 24, 2025, at 7 pm. Kelli Marshall of Chicago Movie Tours will discuss how women navigated societal expectations while dressing for a day of excitement at one of America’s first amusement parks. Through the use of original photographs, vintage newspaper articles, [...]
Nothing to be ashamed of on the Midway Plaisance
“There is nothing quite so free on earth as living in a large city,” claimed a Wisconsin man visiting Chicago in 1893. A reporter from Philadelphia told of the man’s adventure as he journeyed from downtown to the Midway Plaisance of the World’s Fair and into one of its (at the time) notorious theaters. [Image from Puck magazine, July 31, 1893.] Last night a man who had [...]
Chicago Mayor Proposes that the U.S. Should Annex Canada
Saturday, August 19, 1893, was “British Empire Day” at the World’s Fair, and Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison offered some provocative words for the celebration. According to a visitor from Kansas, the mayor declared: “The World’s Exposition now in session is the greatest Fair the world has ever known. The United Sates is the greatest government of the Earth, and we propose to extend our boundaries by annexing Canada to [...]
United States Presidents Who Visited the 1893 World’s Fair
Greeting ex-President Benjamin Harrison when he visited the Indiana State Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago [Image from the Chicago Inter Ocean September 28, 1893.] Thirteen men who served as President of the United States lived at the time of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Five of them are known to have visited Chicago to see the Fair. Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) 19th U.S. President [...]
“Below were the nations of the earth”: Riding the Ferris Wheel
James O’Shaughnessy, Jr. regularly reported on the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago for the St. Joseph Herald. In a letter dated June 24, he describes riding on the great Ferris Wheel, which had opened on the Midway Plaisance only three days earlier. Bumping into people from his Missouri hometown while on the Columbian Exposition fairgrounds would have been surprise enough, but doing so in the confines he describes is [...]
172. Picturesque World’s Fair – Camels and Drivers in Cairo Street
CAMELS AND DRIVERS IN CAIRO STREET.--There was no end to the variations of scenes presented by the camels and drivers in Cairo Street so often described, but in the actual life of the village never really monotonous. A very patient lot were the camels, else, under the abuse they received, both manual and verbal, they would have often turned upon their masters and beaten them down with their ungainly [...]
Are the lights back on at “Devil in the White City”?
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 [...]
171. Picturesque World’s Fair – The Turkish Village
THE TURKISH VILLAGE.—Before the Columbian Exposition closed, the Turkish Village had become one of the prominent features of the Midway Plaisance, and drew a host of visitors. Its chief attractions were the theater and the bazaar, though the mosque, camps and cottages, the Persian tent, Cleopatra's needle and the serpentine column were among the curious things to see. Upon the stage of the theater the scenes presented were purely [...]