Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese collaborating on a new film

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese are reportedly teaming up for a movie adaptation of a well-known book.

Mr. DiCaprio will star and Mr. Scorsese will direct a movie adaptation of Erik Larson’s book “The Devil in the White City.” Mr. Larson’s nonfiction book tells the story of how the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair came to be as well as how a man known as H.H. Holmes built a hotel for fairgoers and became a serial killer. 

DiCaprio will play Holmes and the book is being adapted for the screen by Billy Ray, who has previously worked on the scripts for such movies as 2013’s “Captain Phillips,” for which he received a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination; 2012’s “The Hunger Games”; and the 2003 movie “Shattered Glass.” 

Legendary director Scorsese comes to this project after recently releasing such films as the 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street” and the 2011 movie “Hugo.” He directed the pilot episode of the upcoming HBO show “Vinyl,” which will air in 2016 and centers on a 1970s music producer.

This film "White" will be the newest collaboration between DiCaprio and Scorsese following such movies as “Wolf” and the 2010 movie “Shutter Island.” Two of the four acting Oscar nominations DiCaprio has received have been for his work with Scorsese – he received Best Actor nods for his work in “Wolf” and the 2004 movie “The Aviator.” 

The collaborations between DiCaprio and Scorsese have achieved mixed results. The first between them, 2002’s “Gangs of New York,” which told the story of immigrants living in nineteenth-century New York, received middling reviews from critics, as did the 2010 movie “Shutter Island,” which centered on a mystery at a psychiatric institution. However, their collaboration “The Aviator,” which was released in 2004 and told the story of the life of Howard Hughes, was more positively received by critics, as was the 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which followed Wall Street stockbroker Jordan Belfort. And the 2006 movie “The Departed,” about criminals and law enforcement in Boston, won Scorsese the Best Director Oscar as well as winning Best Picture.

When Scorsese and DiCaprio’s 2002 collaboration “Gangs of New York” was released, there were only five Best Picture nominees (now between five and ten films can be nominated). The nominees alongside “Gangs” included “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” since that trilogy was at the height of its popularity. (Director Peter Jackson’s later movies set in that same fantasy world, the “Hobbit” films, would not be as well-received by critics.) Director Stephen Daldry, whose movie “The Hours” was nominated for Best Picture that year, has stayed a force at the Oscars, with his 2008 movie “The Reader” and 2011’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” also being nominated for Best Picture. Roman Polanski, whose movie “The Pianist” was nominated for Best Picture that year, has continued to release critically acclaimed films, though his 2011 movie "Carnage" and 2013's "Venus in Fur" received more mixed reviews. Meanwhile, the movie “Chicago,” which took Best Picture that year, helped usher in the current popularity of movie musicals. One has been released just about every year since then, to varying box office and critical success, with last year’s “Into the Woods” becoming a winner both financially and critically.