Hannibal was a television series that, despite praise from both critics and a loyal fanbase, was pulled from programming following the conclusion of its third season due to ironically poor ratings. Since then, the producers have been searching for a new network, seeing as a full six seasons were planned. Despite wishful thinking, the odds of continuation continued to dwindle when
Hannibal was rejected by both Netflix and Amazon. While promoting his current television series
The Path at a Television Critics Association panel,
Hannibal star
Hugh Dancy was interviewed afterward about the fate of the series. It shouldn't come as a shock that Dancy remains hopeful. Dancy revealed that he is aware of what showrunner Bryan Fuller had planned for the fourth season and despite much speculation from fans, it wasn't an adaptation of the
Silence of the Lambs novel.
"First of all, we didn't have the rights to Silence of the Lambs. Bryan had described to me in a kind of overview what he wanted to do with the fourth season had there been one, and it was fantastic. It was really a complete restart in a way, without describing it, because who knows? God knows, maybe some day we'll get to do it in the future. I would love that but it took us back to the first season in a very unexpected way, but made total sense of that cliffhanger ending. It seemed justified. It was borne out of a part of one of the books so it was still coming out of that universe, but it wasn't the Clarice part of Silence of the Lambs."
Even if a fourth season does come to fruition, the fact that the rights to The Silence of the Lambs still belong to MGM is an obvious deal breaker when it comes to the possibility of it being adapted. Of course, there is no guarantee that the series will get another season, which is why Bryan Fuller has stated in the past that Hannibal could receive a feature film. Dancy was asked about the chances of a Hannibal film, but it appears that he simply doesn't have the answer.
"The answer is that I don’t know. I think we would be very happy to return in some capacity. I think the idea of a movie is really interesting. Obviously one of the things we did on the show, Bryan did really, was a very languorous, very image-rich storytelling. How to fit that into a movie, I'm not sure. As I was saying, the version of the fourth season described to me maybe would work like that. I just know I'd like it to happen."
Although the future of Hannibal remains uncertain, all three seasons are currently available digitally and on home video. The series originally aired on NBC from 2013 to 2015 and is based on the series of novels written by Thomas Harris.