"Hannibal" showrunner Bryan Fuller is considering reviving the show for a fourth season as an event TV. If plans push through, Fuller hopes to develop a story that would be his take on the widely popular film "Silence of the Lambs."
While speaking during a "Shock Wave" podcast, the showrunner expressed that he would like to adapt the 1991 movie, which starred Sir Anthony Hopkins as the iconic character Hannibal Lecter and FBI agent Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling. He already has some ideas of how it will be done on the small screen.
"I think, ideally for the cast, it would be as a mini-series, here and there," Fuller said, according to Cinema Blend. He thinks six to eight episodes with an irregular cycle in between seasons would do.
But TV Line reports that while Bryan Fuller knows what he wants for "Hannibal" or the adaptation to "Silence of the Lambs," no network is actively pursuing this project. His revelation comes as he also declared that "Hannibal" ended without it intending to be a final show, thus it closed with a cliffhanger. For him, there's always a window to re-develop the series into a mini-series eventually, hence the idea for "Silence of the Lambs" coming into play.
NBC aired "Hannibal" from 2013 to 2015 with Mads Mikkelsen playing the titular role and Hugh Dancy as the FBI profiler. It delved on the origins of psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who would eventually be depicted as a cannibal and serial killer.
Fuller tried to save the show after NBC decided to pull the plug by selling an idea for the fourth season to other networks and platforms. Amazon expressed interest but the deal didn't follow through. By then, the stars of the show have moved on with different projects and Fuller himself became busy developing "American Gods" on Starz and "Star Trek: Discovery" on CBS All Access before he dropped out from the latter.