Hannibal showrunner wants to do Silence of the Lambs arc

Pour Bryan Fuller a nice chianti; the former Hannibal showrunner would love to “explore” the story of Hannibal Lecter with a new take on The Silence of the Lambs.

“We still hope that something can be worked out where we continue telling Hannibal Lecter stories and see The Silence of the Lambs in a way that the book hasn’t been represented,” Fuller said this week during an appearance on Blumhouse’s Shock Waves podcast. “I think the film adaptation is a perfect film, but there’s a lot of interesting nooks and crannies in that book to explore in a television series.”

Fuller’s television adaptation of Hannibal lasted three seasons on NBC before being canceled. The show focused on parts of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal novel and spent its last arc adapting Harris’ Red Dragon, but never got around to the author’s most famous Hannibal Lecter story, The Silence of the Lambs.

Things looked rather final at the end of season 3 of Hannibal, with Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) going over a cliff together, Holmes-and-Moriarty style. However, Fuller said the ending was never intended to be final, and the story could potentially continue in the form of short miniseries (a la Fox’s recent six-episode revival of The X-Files).

“There weren’t going to be any bodies found floating in that lagoon. And the whole point of showing Gillian Anderson sitting at a table with two additional place settings and her leg on the table was there was a big splash and dinner guests are coming,” Fuller said. “I think, ideally for the cast, it would be as a miniseries, here and there. Let’s do six to eight episodes of that, and six to eight episodes over here. And do it as an irregular thing.”

Released in 1991, Silence of the Lambs is one of the most lauded movies of the last 25 years, winning Oscars for best picture, best director, best actress (Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling) and best actor (Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter). There are currently no plans to continue the Fuller’s take on the material on any platform.