Bryan Fuller Shares New Details on ‘Hannibal’ Season 4
Fans of the NBC series Hannibal are still eager for a fourth season, and show creator Bryan Fuller recently gave an update on the project.
Speaking to The Horror Queers podcast ahead of his new film Dust Bunny, which hits theaters on December 12, Fuller explained that the biggest hurdle to Season 4 is the rights to the story.
“Everybody wants to return. Hugh [Dancy], and Mads [Mikkelsen], definitely. But also Lawrence Fishburne, Katie Isabelle, Caroline Dhavernas, Lara Jean Chorostecki, Aaron Abrams, and Scott [Thompson] all want to come back to the story. Right now, it’s a little complicated since Martha de Laurentiis‘ passing,” Fuller said.
He added that the rights are slowly shifting back to Thomas Harris, with MGM and Amazon holding parts of the IP. “They’re all being navigated in a way that is going to be a little trickier to iron out now. They’re in process, and I keep on touching base and trying to encourage folks to get back together,” he said.
Fuller also shared ideas for how the story could continue. He mentioned a potential adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs that might avoid some of the legal obstacles tied to Gaumont International Television, the studio behind Hannibal.
“You can’t copyright a performance, you know? So there are things that we’re trying to figure out if we can get away with that would make an easier path that might shake the possibilities loose of things that we might be hindered from doing at this point, given the status of the rights,” Fuller said. The filmmaker has also suggested casting Zendaya as Clarice Starling in a new take on The Silence of the Lambs.
Regarding the story itself, Fuller explained that he already knows what Season 4 would look like. “I know exactly what season 4 of Hannibal is, and I was frustrated with Season 1. That felt a little more like traditional television to me. There was a lot more ‘murder mystery of the week’ crime procedural kind of things.”
“I was not necessarily drawn to that as an audience member, but I thought Season 2 was better. Season 3, I was like, ‘Okay, this is what we should be doing. This is what I want to be doing. This is the type of storytelling that I think the show can do. And there are a lot of people who don’t like Season 3, and I was like, ‘Well then, you really don’t want a Season 4, because that’s it.’ If you’re not down with Season 3, then you’re not going to be grooving on the plan for Season 4 because it’s following that arc,’ he said.
Fans will have to wait for legal matters to be resolved before any new season can move forward, but Fuller’s comments show that both the cast and the creator are still eager to continue the story.
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