Since The Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have enjoyed quite the working relationship, with the actor and director re-teaming for The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Now, Deadline are reporting a sixth collaboration is in the offing for the pair, with Paramount Pictures picking up the rights to Erik Larson’s true crime novel The Devil in the White City as the next project for the director and leading man.
Published in 2003, the novel tells the story of America’s first serial killer, H. H. Holmes, who murdered an untold number of people, with reports ranging from twenty seven to two hundred, at the 1983 Chicago World’s Fair. The adaption will focus on not only Holmes and his murderous activities inside the World’s Fair (most of which took place inside his own personal ‘murder castle’, The World’s Fair Hotel, which included a gas chamber, crematorium, and dissecting table), but also the Fair’s creator, architect Daniel Burnham, who sees his dream being turned into the stuff of nightmares.
DiCaprio will be taking on the role of Holmes, which takes him outside of his usual comfort zone of playing a shades of grey kind of protagonist and into something a lot darker, maybe the darkest role we’ve seen from him to date. I know this is said anytime, he and Scorsese team up, but this could finally be the role that lands DiCaprio the Oscar.
