NBC's Hannibal Won't Initially Feature Lecter As The Villain?

More details have emerged about just what we can expect from NBC's new scripted series.

By Matt Holmes / April 20, 2012

More details have emerged about just what we can expect from NBC's new crime show Hannibal, the first new scripted series from the network that they were so keen on they agreed to bypass the need for a pilot. Creator/showrunner Bryan Fuller has revealed to EW that the show will initially follow FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and genius psychoanalyst Hannibal Lecter (curiously, not yet cast) as a crime-fighting duo, teaming together to take down the worst criminals LA has to offer.

Its before he was incarcerated, so hes more of a peacock. There is a cheery disposition to our Hannibal. Hes not being telegraphed as a villain. If the audience didnt know who he was, they wouldnt see him coming. What we have is Alfred Hitchcocks principle of suspense show the audience the bomb under the table and let them sweat when its going to go boom," Fuller said. "So the audience knows who Hannibal is so we dont have to overplay his villainy. We get to subvert his legacy and give the audience twists and turns.

So we have to imagine that this new series is an original take on the events before Thomas Harrison's 1981 best-seller 'Red Dragon', the novel that introduced Graham and Lecter upon the world and has been adapted twice on the big screen and which depicts events after Graham captures Lecter. Personally, I'm not so sure I like that approach but then if Lecter was revealed as a serial killer straight away you do wonder how much legs the show could sustain. Fuller says the plan for Hannibal will be for 13 episode seasons arcs of which he has pitched a whopping seven seasons blueprint to NBC, with stories based on Harris' novels filling many of the later episodes.

Doing a cable model on network television gives us the opportunity not to dally in our storytelling because we have a lot of real estate to cover, Fuller says. I pitched a seven-season arc including stories from various books.

So we imagine Silence of the Lambs will be covered later as will the introduction of Clarice Starling. He also revealed that once Lecter is revealed as the villain (which will probably be end of season one, or early season two) there will be a radical shake-up of the show's format and that no viewer should get too comfortable in thinking they are watching a procedural. Also, to further shake things up from the books/films to date, he is changing the sexes of FBI forensic psychologist Dr. Alan Bloom who is now Dr. Alana Bloom and the journalist Freddie Lounds, who is now a blogger (of course!) named Fredricka Lounds. Speaking of the casting for Lecter, AICN's sources claim European actors over the age of 40 are being considered for the title role, most of which are well known for their film work. Anyone got any suggestions for who that could be? Fuller is also currently working on Mockingbird Lane, a remake of The Munsters and was creator of Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies, as well as a prominent writer on Heroes and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Voyager.