Since NBC announced their decision to cancel Hannibal after its third season, fans far and wide have voiced their disappointment in the network and hopes that the series will find a home elsewhere. Both Netflix and Amazon have since passed on giving the series a home with the jury still out on its possible future on another cable network or streaming service (ahem, Hulu).
While it feels like last night’s conclusion to the Thomas Harris-inspired series has indeed done a wonderful service to the subject matter in question, show creator Bryan Fuller has referenced his desire to explore Harris’ most known novel of the series — Silence of the Lambs — in a future season. Unlike Red Dragon, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, Fuller had difficulty acquiring the rights to the book that spawned 1991’s Academy Award-winning movie.
It’s unknown at this point if a future season will ever come to pass, but the folks at CraveOnline were able to pick the man’s brain a bit regarding what this storyline would have looked like. Fuller describes a parallel story structure that would involve a “severely scarred” Dr. Frederick Chilton heading back to work at the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane:
I am imagining a parallel structure of Hannibal in the institution, with a severely scarred Chilton, now having returned to his post, and juxtaposing that, back in the heyday of Hannibal as a psychiatrist, perhaps even earlier than we met him the first time, when he had Benjamin Raspail as a patient, and weave that story in and around the modern day Silence of the Lambs tale as we know it.
While that sounds intriguing — and possibly confusing — Fuller goes on in the interview to discuss his vision in bringing characters like the above referenced Benjamin Raspail, hospital orderly Barney Matthews, Clarice Starling, her roommate Ardelia, and even notorious skin-suit fanatatic Buffalo Bill to the small screen. All this sounds like it’d be a huge undertaking in scope and story unfit for the likes of NBC.
The concept of bringing these characters to the small-screen does get me a wee bit giddy, though. And given Richard Armitrage’s inspiring turn in the show’s third season as Francis Dolarhyde — aka the Tooth Fairy, aka THE GREAT RED DRAGON! — one must wonder who Fuller would tap to play Buffalo Bill in the series. Three words: Lee Motherf*ckin’ Pace:
I would love to cast Lee Pace as Buffalo Bill. His first, most notable, award-winning career move was playing a transgendered person [in 2003’s A Soldier’s Girl], and I think it would be fascinating to return him to that side of his acting skill.
Lee Pace playing Buffalo Bill would definitely be a very intriguing casting choice. But what about Clarice Starling? Earlier in the conversation, Fuller discusses possibly bringing Anna Chlumsky back to the series to reprise her role as Miriam Lass.
For Starling, though, he points to Ellen Page as a possible choice who he says “would be fantastic and more kind of in line with the Clarice that we all know.” Fuller also references an Agent Starling from a “poor and black” Southern upbringing which he says, “could be the necessary gateway into the character, to make Clarice as much our own signature character as we tried to make Will Graham.”
With the cast of Hannibal already moving on to other projects, and with Bryan Fuller deep in American Gods at Starz, there may still be a possibility — albeit a slim one — that more episodes of Hannibal could hit in the future. Until that dream is fulfilled, we’ll have to let these details feed our voracious fan-fic needs.
In other news, here’s a teaser to a new blooper reel for ya. I mean, something is better than nothing!
(Via CraveOnline)
