Devil in the White City series loses its director just days after star Keanu Reeves drops out

The upcoming Hulu series Devil in the White City has lost its director, Todd Field, just days after Keanu Reeves dropped out of the lead role.

Field recently directed film festival favorite Tár, which stars Cate Blanchett as one of the world's greatest living composers and conductors, the fictional Lydia Tár. He also helmed 2006's Little Children, starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson, and 2001's In the Bedroom, starring Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson.

Devil in the White City will be based on the book by Erik Larson, which in turn is based on true events. The series is set to follow two men: Daniel H. Burnham, an architect, and Henry H. Holmes, a doctor-turned-serial-killer, whose fates were linked by the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Burnham was the architect behind the fair, while Holmes lured victims to his "Murder Castle" in the grounds of the fair, making him America's first modern serial killer. Reeves was set to play Burnham in his first major US small-screen role.

An adaptation of Larson's book has been in the works for a while – Leonardo DiCaprio bought the rights to the book back in 2010 and was originally planning a movie adaptation with Martin Scorsese in the director's chair, and Scorsese and DiCaprio are now both executive producing the series. However, this is yet another roadblock for the project after it was officially greenlit by Hulu in August 2022.

Devil in the White City doesn't have a release date yet. While we wait for the series to arrive on Hulu, check out our guide to the best new TV shows coming our way this year.

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