One of the biggest shames in recent television history was the cancelation of Bryan Fullers Hannibal on NBC. The show made it through three seasons and since it wasn’t getting great ratings it was ultimately cut from the NBC schedule. Since then we have heard many rumors of the show coming back to another network or a streaming service. So far, no one has picked up the show and it seems like most of the major players have simply turned it down. The shows ambiguous ending is a fair ending for Hannibal but it definitely leaves the door open for more, and Fannibals want more.

The show started in 2013 and concluded in 2015. It starred Mads Mikkelsen as the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lector, Hugh Dancy as Will Graham, and Laurence Fishburne as Jack Crawford. Over the course of its run we got to see Lector like we never have before. He is an elegant man who is still practicing his profession as a psychiatrist. The show focuses less on Lectors insatiable urges for human flesh and more on his manipulative nature. Grahams work as a FBI profiler has him establishing the motives for serial killers in unique ways. Lector sees that Graham understands the killers and wants to shape Graham into becoming a killer himself. Now I know that this is a super simple explanation of the show but I don’t want to ruin anything for people that haven’t seen it because you really need to see it.

The purpose of this post is talk about the chances of Hannibal ever returning to TV. The show has been off the air now for over a year. The actors involved have been released from their contracts and have moved on to other projects so it seems unlikely that they would suddenly be available to come back and make a fourth season. Also the creator and show runner, Bryan Fuller, seems to have a full plate at the moment. He has two new shows in the works, American Gods and Star Trek: Discovery, which are both slated to be released next year.

The good news is that it has been reported many times that the cast would love to come back if the show was picked up again. Again the timing would have to work out for the entire cast, but hey, at least they seem to be on board.

“The cast is game, I’m game, it’s just a matter of finding the right time where everybody’s schedules sync up, but I would love to continue to tell the story with Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen.” – Bryan Fuller

The other issue that arises is where the show left off. We got a great retelling of the Red Dragon story so up next would be the Silence of the Lambs (which would be so fucking great!). Unfortunately, MGM has the rights to the characters for The Silence of the Lambs, so characters like Buffalo Bill and Clarice Starling would not be able to be involved in the next season. I guess they could do another original story that fits in-between Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs for now and keep working on acquiring the rights. Dancy has commented on this issue recently and said basically that Fuller has a story in mind that would bring us back to the first season and wouldn’t get into the story of Clarice and Hannibal.

Honestly, I love The Silence of the Lambs and I would really enjoy seeing Mikkelsen staring opposite of a new version of Clarice (Lee Pace as a male version of Clarice perhaps?), but I feel like it wouldn’t necessarily fit into the story that they have told so far. The story in the TV show is that of Lector and Graham, and to interject the Silence of the Lambs story, throws out Grahams involvement entirely.

A major factor here as well is who currently owns the rights to the television show. Amazon has the streaming rights which prevents Netflix from getting involved. According to Fuller:

“Two years after the last airing of the show, we can investigate our options […] August 2017 is when we can actually start talking about it. That’s when we would have to see what the rights are for the character and for the story, and see who’s interested and how we get it done.”

So even if the show is to get done, we are still about a year out from any development at all on it. I am naively optimistic that we will see one more season of the show, or at least a film version.

Fuller always seems to get the short end of the stick. He hasn’t had much luck in the past with keeping shows on television which sucks because he is a very creative mind. Maybe its too early to call Hannibal his masterpiece, but at this point I think it is. I would love to see the story go on further. There are great stories in the source material to work with and Fuller and his team are creative enough to come up with their own additions to the stories that wont disappoint us. So mark you calendars for August 2017. That month will be the best chance of us knowing if we are going to get any more of Bryan Fullers world of Hannibal Lector. Fingers crossed!