Keanu Reeves leaves Hulu’s “Devil in the White City,” a Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio production.

According to sources, the Disney-backed streamer is already looking for a successor for the fan favourite from “The Matrix.”

 

It was quick.

Keanu Reeves left the project two months after it was formally announced by Hulu that he will star in Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Devil in the White City series.

 

The drama, which has been in various stages of development for more than ten years, is currently looking for a replacement actor to play the lead, according to sources at the Disney-backed streamer. Hulu and Reeves representatives declined to comment.

 

Early in August, Hulu made the decision to purchase Devil in the White City, and Reeves signed a contract to play the lead, which would have been his biggest TV commitment to date.

 

With Sam Shaw (Hulu’s Castle Rock) on board as writer, showrunner, and executive producer, the project has been in development for more than ten years, including a period when it was initially intended to be a feature picture. Along with Scorsese, DiCaprio and his Appian Way co-founder Jennifer Davisson executive produce. The latter was initially slated to take the helm of the feature picture take that Paramount Pictures had planned and had DiCaprio originally attached to star in. After months of negotiations, Reeves was selected to star in and executive produce the series that Hulu chose to develop in 2019. The crime drama, a joint venture between Paramount Television Studios and Disney’s ABC Signature, will be directed by Todd Field. After a fierce bidding war in 2015, when Billy Ray was hired to write the scripts, Paramount Pictures was awarded the rights to the book.

 

The story of Devil, which is based on Erik Larson’s novel, centres on Dr. H. H. Holmes, America’s first modern serial killer, and Daniel H. Burnham, a demanding but visionary architect who races to make his mark on history with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Dr. H. H. Holmes is also the man behind the infamous “Murder Castle,” which was built in the shadow of the fair. (As of press time, DiCaprio is not anticipated to play a character on film.)

 

The sitcom is executive produced by Rick Yorn, Stacey Sher, Field, and Mark Lafferty as well. The number of official episodes has not yet been established. Prior collaborations between Scorsese and DiCaprio included the films Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Previous TV adaptations of Gangs of New York and Shutter Island were created by the regular collaborators, but neither made it past the writing stage. Apple now has a movie and television partnership with DiCaprio. Killers of the Flower Moon, a $200 million film, will make its streaming debut on the service next year. DiCaprio executive produces the Apple series Shining Girls.