Max La Bella hired to pen The Devil’s Rooming House for Peter Facinelli

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The world’s most prolific female serial killer has found someone to bring her story to the big screen.

We last updated you on THE DEVIL’S ROOMING HOUSE in November, when we learned the rights to M. William Phelps’ true crime tome about early 20th century murderess Amy Archer-Gilligan has been bought by Peter Facinelli‘s A7SLE Films. Yes, we’re talking Peter Facinelli, the guy from the TWILIGHT movies. (Hey, no judgements.) Now it seems as though the project has found a screenwriter: Max La Bella, who recently penned DEMONIC for producer James Wan and director Will Canon.

Here’s the synopsis for Phelps’ book:

A silent, simmering killer terrorized New England in 1911. A heat wave unlike any that had come before killed people in the streets, caused others to drown in the waters where they sought relief, and drove still others to suicide. As more than 2,000 people died during the natural disaster, another silent killer began her own murderous spree. Amy Archer-Gilligan operated the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids in Windsor, Connecticut. What was thought to be a respectable business run by a pioneering woman was exposed as little more than a murder factory.

Amy would be accused of murdering both her husbands and dozens (as many as sixty) of her elderly patients with cocktails of lemonade and arsenic—all for money. She would be convicted and sentenced to hang, and her story would shock turn-of-the-century America and provide the inspiration for the Broadway sensation and classic film Arsenic and Old Lace. Acclaimed crime writer M. William Phelps has written the first book to tell the true story of greed and murder even more shocking than its fictional counterpart.

Pretty meaty stuff; wonder who they’ll get to play Archer-Gilligan? I vote for Judi Dench!