A revival of Hannibal on another network or platform just became a whole lot more complicated. Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy are officially free agents and have been released from their contracts.
This development now makes the magic act of getting a fourth season to materialise on our screens a very difficult task. Netflix is unable to come to the rescue owing to the streaming rights of the show resting with Amazon. Showrunner Bryan Fuller previously commented that without “the NBC component” the existing financiers would likely drop out.
As much as this latest news seems to confirm that Hannibal will be serving his final course of horrors, but the fat lady has yet to belt out a tune. The desire from Fuller, Dancy and Mikkelsen is there to continue their odyssey into the mind of Hannibal Lecter, but can they find it a new home before time runs out.
A loyal US fanbase and a massive international audience wasn’t enough to keep Hannibal in hot dinners on NBC. Fuller has made it known that he knew the series’ future on NBC was coming to an end.
“[NBC has] really given us a long leash with which to tell our stories. I’m glad that we had the first three years – and hopefully we’ll have another year someplace else.”
Fuller also praised Jennifer Salke – NBC’s Entertainment President for championing the series for three years.
“[She] had been protecting the show for the first three years from the programmers who wanted to cancel it. And we knew that she could only cover us for so long – so we had an idea that this was going to be the last season on NBC.”
There is always the option of a limited batch of two-hour instalments, but at this stage I would be fuelling the speculation fire to say much more. I bloody love Hannibal, and I hope it continues in some form.