The feature adaptation of Devil in the White City is back at Paramount, with Leonardo DiCaprio having enlisted his frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese to help make his passion project into a reality.
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Billy Ray, whose credits include “Captain Phillips” and “The Hunger Games“, will write the script. Producers are DiCaprio and his Appian Way partner Jennifer Davisson along with Stacey Sher, Scorsese and Rick Yorn. There’s probably a book to be written here about the various efforts to produce a film based on the book by Erik Larson – a film which at one time might have been made with Kathryn Bigelow directing Tom Cruise – but for the time being let’s focus on this current development.
DiCaprio will play Holmes, who was believed to have murdered anywhere from 27-200 people during the excitement surrounding the hosting of The World’s Fair in 1893. The sociopath used charm and guile to lure guests into what became known as a “murder castle”, a haunt that had a gas chamber, crematorium and a dissecting table where Holmes would murder his victims and strip their skeletons to sell for medical and scientific study. DiCaprio will play the killer, and Scorsese will direct. While it sounds like The Devil In The White City will be the next collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, exactly when they will be making it remains a bit of a mystery.
Their fates were linked by the magical Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, nicknamed the “White City” for its majestic beauty.
The pair have worked in several hit movies together within the past two decades, including The Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed, The Aviator and Gangs of New York. The 2003 non-fiction book The Devil In The White City tells the true story of Dr. Holmes and his evil operations in late 19th century Chicago.
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DiCaprio is repped by LBI, which also reps Scorsese.
