Ben Affleck Joins Hulu's New Docuseries Hunting Whitey Bulger

Deadline reports that Affleck is set to narrate and executive produce the three-part docuseries Hunting Whitey Bulger, whose subject has served as the inspiration for Martin Scorsese's The Departed and Johnny Depp's Black Mass. The three-parter serves as part of Hulu's renewed focus on true crime documentaries.

Bulger was the leader of the Winter Hill gang, an Irish mob based in Boston. Going into hiding after being tipped off by his FBI handler, Bulger would remain on the loose for another 16 years until he was caught in 2011. Bulger was found guilty on 31 counts and connected to 11 murders. The mobster was ultimately sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and beaten to death in prison in 2018.

The docuseries will be based on fresh insight. That includes reporting hand-written letters from prison that haven't been revealed before, as well as important figures speaking on camera for the first time in an attempt to tell the “definitive inside story” of the events that led to Bulger's capture and killing.

Hunting Whitey Bulger will be directed by Zackary Canepari, who is known for the police docuseries Flint Town. It hails from Tom Forman’s Terminal B TV, which is behind Netflix’s true crime docuseries Unknown Number: The High School Catfish. Forman also serves as executive producer alongside David Metzler and showrunner Claire Read.

Affleck will executive produce Hunting Whitey Bulger via his Artists Equity banner alongside Kyle Wheeler. It's not the first time that Affleck, a two-time Oscar winner, has been attached to a Whitey Bulger project. He'd previously been slated to direct a movie about the mobster with his friend and collaborator Matt Damon, but it did not move forward.

The film was reported in October 2011 as a Warner Bros. production. It would have marked a reunion between Damon and Affleck after their Oscar-winning breakout Good Will Hunting. Affleck would serve as director and co-writer, along with his producing duties, with Damon playing Bulger.

At the time, Affleck noted that he'd heard about Bulger's stories since he was a kid. He'll finally get to tell the story now, albeit in a different way than he perhaps initially envisioned, as Hunting Whitey Bulger joins other Hulu docuseries such as The Scream Murder: A True Teen Horror Story and Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese.