Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has purchased the rights to a book about the first American serial killer, and word has it he’s planning on turning it into a film. The Devil in the White City is Erik Larson’s 2003 non-fiction title about Dr. HH Holmes, a hotel owner who lured young women into his hotel, where he gassed them, dissected them, and sold the remains to medical research facilities.
He is said to have killed as many as 200 people in the 19th century, and Hollywood has been poised to jump all over this story for some time now. Â Tom Cruise had originally wanted rights to the book, but the deal fell through, and now it looks like it’s a green light for DiCaprio to tell the story the way he wants to