After five films together, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese are teaming up once again for The Devil in the White City, a Hulu TV adaptation of Erik Larson’s bestselling 2003 book about the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and two men who played significant roles in it: Daniel H Burnham, the Fair’s chief architect; and HH Holmes, America’s first serial killer.

Holmes famously built his own “Murder Castle” alongside the Fair, and, while claiming credit for 27 murders among the Fair’s attendees, is thought to have actually killed up to 200. DiCaprio has signed on to play Holmes; even by his own arduous standards, his follow-up to The Revenant may challenge both the actor and his audience.

The part of Holmes is actually tailor-made for DiCaprio 2.0 – you know, the slightly sulphurous curdled-charisma one rather than the fresh-faced teen-scream one. Holmes was a heroic swindler as well as a mass murderer; a kind of cross between the con artist Frank Abagnale Jr, whom DiCaprio played in Catch Me If You Can, and John Wayne Gacy.

“Young, good-looking, glib, he mesmerised businessmen and captivated and seduced pretty young women, at least two of whom he married bigamously,” wrote John Bartlow Martin in an essay on Holmes in Harper’s magazine. “Physician, student of hypnotism, dabbler in the occult, gentleman of fashion, devious liar, skilful manipulator of amazingly complex enterprises, he died on the gallows when he was thirty-five.”