Leonardo DiCaprio to Play America’s Most Famously Prolific Serial Killer for Martin Scorsese

Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer are all notorious names in America’s history. But if it’s gruesome murder sprees and style you want, then the U.S. serial killer for you is H.H. Holmes, the chilling subject of Erik Larson’s best-selling 2003 book, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. Variety reports that Leonardo DiCaprio will play Holmes for Martin Scorsese in a long-awaited adaptation of the popular book. This will be their sixth collaboration after The Wolf of Wall Street, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and Shutter Island. According to Variety, the project has been in development for more than a decade.

H.H. Holmes admitted to killing 27 women in the time surrounding the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, but is widely believed to have dispatched closer to 200 victims. Holmes built himself the perfect murdering machine in the shape of a diabolical hotel since nicknamed the Murder Castle. (American Horror Story Season 5, anyone?) The structure had gas lines that fed into rooms, enormous furnaces, lime and acid pits, and large vaults where Holmes tortured, suffocated, and strangled his victims. All the while decked out in the natty attire of a well-to-do 19th-century gentleman. If you thought Scorsese’s Bill the Butcher was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

For a taste of some of the dialogue DiCaprio might get to chew over, here’s a choice quote commonly attributed to Holmes: “Yes, I was born with the devil in me. I was born with the evil standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.”

Larson’s book tells the twin narratives of Holmes the serial killer and Daniel H. Burnham the architect behind the Chicago’s World Fair. No word yet on whether the Scorsese film will include Burnham’s story alongside that of Holmes’s, but Scorsese is no stranger to dual narratives and dramatic foils. Why not make The Devil in the White City a complete Departed reunion and draft Matt Damon for the role of Burnham? We already know he can rock the requisite mustache.

Source: Vanity Fair

I might actaully go see that one in theaters