Producer Stacey Sher gave Deadline the latest update along what has been the very winding road to adapting Erik Larson’s bestselling non-fiction classic, The Devil in the White City, for the screen.
The project has been in various stages of development since before Deadline revealed that Leonardo DiCaprio had bought the film rights to the book in 2010. He subsequently set it up as a feature at Paramount with Scorsese to direct and himself to star. In 2019, Hulu announced that it was developing the project as a big-budget series with DiCaprio and Scorsese exec producing. Last year, Hulu decided not to proceed with the project. ABC Signature, which had the project in Association with Paramount Television Studios, indicated at the time a continuing comittment to the project and hope of finding it a new home. That was in March 2023.
Now, when asked about the long-aborning Devil Sher, who has been with it since the beginning, told Deadline it’s still happening.
“I’m still involved. I never give up,” she said.
When asked if we might see the screen version of Larson’s book soon Sher indicated continuing interest.
“I hope so,” she answered. “It’s not imminent, but it is not ever far from my mind.”
As for the continued involvement of the big names previously attached to the project, Sher indicated they band was still together.
“Yes, that would be Rick [Yorn], Leo [DiCaprio], Jen [Davisson], and Mr. Scorsese. We’re all still involved.”
Devil in the White City follows Dr. HH Holmes, a cunning serial killer believed to have murdered anywhere from 27 to 200 people at a time when the city of Chicago was enthralled with hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The book plays off the contrasts between the hopeful expectations and wonders presented at the Exposition and the dark deeds of Holmes, who maneuvered in its shadows.
Agricultural Building lit up at night during the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893
The Field Museum Library, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Back when the book was published in 2003, Tom Cruise optioned it with the intention to play the killer. DiCaprio set up a rival project, planning to rely on public domain materials of Holmes’s murderous exploits. When the book rights came available, Appian Way and Double Features acquired it from Paradigm on behalf of lit agency Black Inc.
In 2015, DiCaprio set it up as a feature at Paramount, with Scorsese directing and Billy Ray to write the script. In 2022, it went to Hulu as an eight-episode series with Keanu Reeves taking the Holmes role and Todd Field directing. Scorsese and DiCaprio became solely producers. When Reeves, Field and Hulu all pulled away from the ambitious project, the ABC Signature expressed its continued commitment. It seems the other longtime players feel the same way.