The list of A-list actors to have never headlined a TV series keeps getting smaller, and we can now cross Keanu Reeves off the list after it was confirmed the action icon would be heading to the small screen to lead Hulu series Devil in the White City, which has been in development for what feels like forever.
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio were initially trying to get the literary adaptation off the ground as a feature film since as early as 2010, but the Disney-owned streaming service stepped in to transform the project into a prestige episodic production, while the two Academy Award winners and regular collaborators remain on board as executive producers.
News of Reeves’ involvement first broke back in January, so it’s evidently been a lenghty process to hammer out a contractual arrangement that suits him, which makes sense when Devil in the White City will mark his first-ever major leading role in an American television series, and he’s got plenty of outside commitments through the BRZRKR and John Wick franchises.
Reeves will play architect Daniel H. Burnham, who races against the clock to try and make a name for himself in Chicago at the 1893 World’s Fair, where he finds himself tangled up in a web that also involves H.H. Holmes, the man widely regarded as the nation’s first modern serial killer.
A lavish period piece/serial killer thriller starring Keanu Reeves, backed by Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio? Yes please, sign us up for Devil in the White City right now.