While Keanu Reeves has delivered a lot of great movies over the decades, he also has some TV experience under his belt. Most of that was from before he became a Hollywood star, but just a few years back, he led the short-lived series Swedish Dicks. However, in early August, it was announced that Reeves would be leading The Devil in the White City, the upcoming show Hulu subscribers will be able to watch based on the same-named nonfiction book by Erik Larson. Unfortunately for those of you who were looking forward to this, the John Wick star is no longer attached to the project.
The plan was for Keanu Reeves to star in The Devil in the White City as Daniel Burnham, the architect who played an integral role in designing the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Burnham is one of the two lead characters in The Devil in the White City, the other being serial killer H.H. Holmes, who constructed the “Murder Castle” as that World’s Fair was coming together. Now the creatives minds behind the Hulu adaptation will need to find someone new to play Burnham, though Variety did not share any information about why Reeves exited. No one has been cast as Holmes yet.
This is another blow for The Devil in the White City on-screen adaptation, which has been in development for over a decade. Originally the plan was for this to be a movie, with Leonardo DiCaprio having purchased the film rights to the book in 2010 and roped in frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese to direct and Billy Ray to write the script. Then in 2019, it was revealed that The Devil in the White City would instead be adapted into a Hulu show. DiCaprio and Scorsese are still involved as executive producers, though when Reeves’ casting was originally announced, it was reported that the former wasn’t expected to have an onscreen role.
Sam Shaw is showrunning and executive producing The Devil in the White City, and the other executives producers include Rick Yorn, Jennifer Davisson, Stacey Sher, Mark Lafferty and Lila Byock. Hulu is already searching for Keanu Reeves’ replacement, but it’s hard to say when a new actor to play Daniel Burnham will be selected. If the search takes too long, this will likely result in production needing to be pushed back, meaning that the folks who are anticipating this limited series are in for an even longer wait.
Not to worry though, Keanu Reeves fans, as this actor has other projects on the horizon. Following his vocal outing as Batman in DC League of Super-Pets (now streamable with an HBO Max subscription), Reeves will next be seen in John Wick: Chapter 4, which dropped its first trailer back in July. Along with a fifth John Wick outing already being lined up, Reeves is set to reprise John Constantine and will also lead a film adaptation of the Boom! Studios comic book series BRZRKR, which he co-writes.
As soon as it’s announced who will be taking over as Daniel Burnham in The Devil in the White City, we’ll let you know. For now, catch up to speed on the shows left to premiere this year by perusing out 2022 TV schedule.
