Why the Hannibal TV Series Couldnt Adapt The Silence of the Lambs

Why the Hannibal TV Series Couldn’t Adapt The Silence of the Lambs

Unfortunately, for legal reasons, Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal TV series couldn’t adapt the Silence of the Lambs storyline.

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Why the Hannibal TV Series Couldnt Adapt The Silence of the Lambs

In 2013, Bryan Fuller reacquainted the world with pop culture’s most iconic cannibalistic serial killer in the NBC series Hannibal. It was a new kind of Hannibal, more romantic and gracefully grotesque, who begins a psychological game of cat and mouse with troubled criminal profiler Will Graham. Their relationship morphs into a dark courtship that eventually ends with Will embracing his “dark rebirth,” ending the series as Hannibal’s partner.

The character of Hannibal Lector was created by Thomas Harris in a series of books that include Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and the prequel, Hannibal Rising. The television series incorporated storylines and characters from each of the novels except for The Silence of the Lambs, which appears to have been excluded entirely. In fact, much of the character development given to Clarice in the books was given to Will Graham, including her relationship with Hannibal. He became Hannibal’s object of obsession rather than the upcoming star agent. Then there’s the chase of the characters Franklin Froideveaux and Tobias Budge who were based on the characters Benjamin Raspail and Jame Gumb from The Silence of the Lambs.

Why the Hannibal TV Series Couldnt Adapt The Silence of the Lambs

Granted, Hannibal is not a point by point adaptation that follows the novels as they are presented. The series incorporated the books in a different way with each season mixing together original and adapted content, but that wasn’t the original plan. From the beginning, Fuller wanted to spread the series out into six seasons and include The Silence of the Lambs by Season 4 with Ellen Paige in mind to play Clarice Starling.

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Unfortunately, this never came to pass. Hannibal was canceled after three seasons, and Clarice Starling and Buffalo Bill never got to make their grand appearance. But, if Fuller was so set on a Silence of the Lambs storyline, why didn’t it come to fruition? Well, the answer is, he simply didn’t have the rights to the characters or novel.

Fuller explained in an interview with Collider the reasons why their show couldn’t recreate Silence of the Lambs. “Silence of the Lambs is owned by MGM,” he clarified. “What happened early on and why there was sort of a sticking point for us with the Clarice rights is that MGM was originally working on a deal with Martha De Laurentiis that had everything in one package, and then Gaumont came along and offered Martha a significantly greater deal that MGM couldn’t match. So there’s been a little bit of animosity between the studios because MGM’s like, ‘Hey, you were gonna do it with us,’ and she was like, ‘Yeah, but you didn’t give me the better deal,’ and they were kind of upset about that. So that’s why it’s been sort of a sticking point to try to get the Clarice rights because they were like, ‘Why would we help you when you…’ They’re basically Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle.”

In simplified terms, the production company MGM has owned the rights to The Silence of the Lambs since 1991, when the film starring Anthony Hopkins was released. A deal was going through until the opportunity for a better, different deal, came along and now MGM is unhappy with what they feel is a betrayal. This actually started a short time after 1981 when the rights to the Hannibal Lector character were first up for grabs. Film producer Dino De Laurentiis bought the screen rights to the character and to Red Dragon, adapting it for the 1986 film Manhunter. It was a box office bomb and De Laurentiis lost faith in the character until The Silence of the Lambs blew up at the box office.

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After that point, De Laurentiis held tightly on to anything to do with Lecter, with his wife Martha following his led after his death in 2010. The Dino De Laurentiis company still owns the movie and TV rights to Hannibal Lecter, meaning no studio can use him without giving De Laurentiis compensation. However, MGM refuses to let go of The Silence of the Lambs, meaning De Laurentiis, who was producing the Hannibal TV series, couldn’t use it without permission. However, there is still a chance that a fourth season or maybe even a sequel miniseries could happen. Fuller has said that talks for a The Silence of the Lambs deal are up again, meaning Will Graham and Clarice Starling could finally have their first on-screen interaction sometime in the near future.

Hannibal stars Mads Mikkelson, Hugh Dancy, Caroline Dhavernas, Laurence Fishburne, Scott Thompson, Aaron Abrams, Gillian Anderson, and Hettienne Park. All three seasons are currently streaming on Netflix.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/why-hannibal-series-couldnt-adapt-silence-of-the-lambs/

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