In development hell for years, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio ‘s period crime thriller The Devil In The White City has been picked up by 20th Century Studios.
Around 15 years after the rights were first picked up, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese’s period crime thriller project The Devil In The White City has found a home at 20th Century Studios.
Based on Erik Larson’s 2004 non-fiction book about a 19th century serial killer, the project has been in various stages of development hell for over 20 years. Tom Cruise originally had an adaptation planned shortly after the book’s publication, but that fell apart. Leonardo DiCaprio then acquired the rights in 2010 (via his company, Appian Way), and the project has wandered from studio to studio ever since.
At one point, The Devil In The White City was going to be a Paramount movie; then it was billed as a prestige TV series at Hulu. ABC Signature – a subsidiary of Disney – later got involved, but never quite got going in that company’s offices, either.
The last time we heard anything was in August 2024, when producer Stacey Sher, who’s been attached to the adaptation for years, insisted that it was still alive. “I’m still involved,” she said at the time. “It’s not imminent, but it’s not ever far from my mind.”
According to Deadline, though, The Devil In The White City now has a new lease on life at 20th Century Studios, with Scorsese said to be in talks to direct and DiCaprio to star. It’s still early days, however, with sources suggesting that it doesn’t yet have a script.
The book explores the story and broader historical context of one HH Holmes, a murderer and swindler who was executed for his crimes in 1896. In the years since, the legend around ‘America’s first serial killer’, as he was later dubbed, slowly grew. There were tales of his ‘Murder Castle’ filled with elaborate and deadly traps – a myth likely cooked up in the period’s tabloid newspapers.
Assuming it happens, The Devil In The White City will be the sixth feature collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio – a director-actor partnership that stretches back to 2002’s Gangs Of New York and continued up to another true-crime drama, 2023’s Killers Of The Flower Moon.
More on the duo’s filmmaking exploits as we get it.