Producer Bryan Fuller Talks "Hannibal" TV Series

We're hoping this makes us forget about Hannibal Rising.

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Complex Original

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There usually aren't too many reasons to get excited over a popular movie franchise being turned into a TV series, but we're approaching the upcoming Hannibal Lecter TV drama, simply titled Hannibal, with some optimism. First off, the source material easily translates to the small screen. And second of all, there is a severe lack of cannibalism on network television that this show could take advantage of.

But the biggest reason why people should be paying attention to this show is because of writer and producer Bryan Fuller. Everything he has revealed about the show so far has been absolutely on-point, and in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he revealed even more details on the show's premise.

“It’s before he was incarcerated, so he’s more of a peacock. There is a cheery disposition to our Hannibal. He’s not being telegraphed as a villain. If the audience didn’t know who he was, they wouldn’t see him coming. What we have is Alfred Hitchcock’s principle of suspense — show the audience the bomb under the table and let them sweat when it’s going to go boom," Fuller said. "So the audience knows who Hannibal is so we don’t have to overplay his villainy. We get to subvert his legacy and give the audience twists and turns.”

It's interesting that Fuller went in this direction instead of feeding us more of the same Lecter stories that we have seen in the past. It should be fascinating to see just how emotionally attached audiences get to Lecter in this series before he finally gets outed as a serial killer later on.

Fuller is thinking so far ahead on this series that he already has seven seasons of the show planned out before one episode has even gone into production. It's a risky proposition to try and reinvent one of the most iconic characters in the history of cinema, but if the end result is as good as what Fuller is describing, then Hannibal could easily break all of the rules for a TV drama.

[via Entertainment Weekly

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