Back in the dark, cold days of January came the exceptionally dark and cold news that Hannibal's third season was to be pushed back from its usual spring air date on NBC, into a traditionally dreaded summer slot.

The general assumption was that this was a network decision motivated by the show's low ratings, and the most pessimistic of fans worried that NBC were putting Bryan Fuller's masterful drama out to pasture.



But Fuller explained to Digital Spy this week that the decision was his and was made out of necessity, after an attempt to re-jig the show's production schedule had left the crew under unrealistic time constraints.

"We barely, by the skin of our teeth, were able to produce the first two seasons with a lot of hard work, and a lot of people bending over backwards and contorting, because it's so hard to do a crafted television show in eight days [per episode]," Fuller said.

"It was eight-day episodes, and then an additional day or two of second unit, and massive overtime. But coming into the third season, which is our most ambitious yet, it was essentially trying to squeeze all of that into seven days, with no second unit, and it blew up in everybody's faces.

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"It was one of those where I was saying, 'This isn't gonna work, this isn't gonna work', and then on day three of production I was like, 'This really does not work', because we were not completing episodes. Scenes were getting dropped, shots were dropped, so in the editing room I was like, 'I can't even put this together because there's not enough material'.

"And I'd been squawking about that for four months, saying we're in trouble, and then finally after four months we realised where we were and had to push back, because the show wasn't done."

He added: "I don't mind a summer schedule at all, and it actually allowed us to fix our mistakes, of trying to simplify how we were producing the show, which was misguided."

Principal photography on the third season of Hannibal wraps in Toronto today (April 24), and the season will now debut on NBC in June.

The Art and Making of Hannibal by Jesse McLean is released on May 8 from Titan Books.

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