娱乐英语新闻:Leo DiCaprio to play serial killer

BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star as one of the most notorious murderers in U.S. history in a big-screen adaptation of “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson.

The 36-year-old actor is set to play Dr. HH Holmes, a cunning serial killer believed to have murdered anywhere from 27 to 200 people in Chicago during the 1890s.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Holmes built a hotel of horrors in Chicago at the end of the 18th century to capitalize on the World's Fair. The "murder castle," as it came to be known, was a labyrinth of random, windowless rooms, stairs to nowhere, gas chambers, and hallways built at weird angles. When Holmes has done torturing his victims, the bodies would be dissected in the basement and sold in bits to medical schools.

Tom Cruise had initially optioned "Devil in the White City" and planned to play the role of Holmes, but DiCaprio was so determined to play the part he developed his own rival Holmes project based on public-domain materials before ultimately acquiring the book’s film rights himself.