A History of Darkness
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have a history of collaborating on seriously dark projects that delve into the gritty and disturbing aspects of the human experience. Their partnership began with 2002's Gangs of New York and continued with 2004's The Aviator, but it was with 2006's The Departed that the pair hit their stride.
Martin Scorsese & Leonardo DiCaprio sitting at a bar behind the scenes of The Departed
The Departed, a grimy police thriller, stars DiCaprio as an undercover cop investigating the mob, taking the exploration of the criminal underworld to a whole new level of nastiness. Their next collaboration, 2010's Shutter Island, continued the trend with a brutally bleak film noir that delved into the troubled psyche of a troubled cop investigating a creepy sanitarium.
Custom image of Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon beside a picture of him reading a script with Martin Scorsese
The Wolf of Wall Street, released in 2013, marked a return to critical acclaim for Scorsese and DiCaprio, offering a blackly comic look at insider trading, stock market corruption, and capitalist greed. Their studies of hubris, excess, and wanton violence peaked in 2023 with Killers of the Flower Moon, a dark historical epic that chronicles the murder of an Indigenous American family by one of their white husbands and his corrupt uncle. However, before reaching this peak, the director and actor almost ventured into even darker territory.
The Unmade Project
As brutal as Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio's completed collaborations are, none of them can compete with one unmade project the duo was attached to years ago. The Devil in the White City, based on Erik Larson's book, was going to be about the notorious serial killer H. H. Holmes and his horrific 'Murder Castle.' Holmes is considered America's first serial killer, and the sensationalist story of his crimes would have made for a gripping, gruesome biopic.
Although the reality of Holmes's killings might have been less dramatic than some contemporary sources claimed, his terrifying legacy was captured in Larson's book, ensuring that DiCaprio and Scorsese's series could have been a deeply unsettling horror story. However, Killers of the Flower Moon ended up becoming the only serial killer biopic that DiCaprio and Scorsese would collaborate on.
The Fate of The Devil in the White City
The Devil in the White City went from being a movie directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio to a TV show, with Keanu Reeves set to take on the lead role. However, the project has since been abandoned, and nothing is happening with The Devil in the White City now. While Reeves is no longer up for the role of H. H. Holmes, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio may still be attached as executive producers if the project ever happens.
