Keanu Reeves Set to Play Daniel Burnham in ‘The Devil in the White City’

Planning is going to get a new level of star power as a limited series adaptation of The Devil in the White City gets ready for television screens in 2024.

1 minute read

August 8, 2022, 7:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


A image of the World's Columbian Exposition overlayed with a picture of Keanu Reeves in the rain from the movie Point Break.

Everett Collection / Shutterstock and 20th Century Fox

The planning stars are colliding.

Keanu Reeves, star of Point Break (1991) and many other films, has signed on to play Daniel Burnham—one of the most famous planners in U.S. history as the author of the Plan of Chicago, source of the immortal words “Make no little plans,” co-conspirator of the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893, and father of the City Beautiful movement—in the Hulu adaptation of the book, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.

“Filming entirely in Chicago in 2023, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese will executive produce along with Stacee SherRick Yorn, Emma Koskoff, and Jennifer Davisson. Director Todd Field has signed on to helm the first two episodes,” reports Barbara Roche for Reel Chicago (emphasis from the original).

Planetizen first shared news of the forthcoming adaptation in February 2019.

Keanu Reeves in a scene from Point Break. WHile raining the actor says "Vaya con dios." (Lines are shown in subtitles on screen.)

Thursday, August 4, 2022 in Reel Chicago

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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