10 Essential Parts Of Movie Franchises (That Weren’t Introduced Until The Sequel)

4. It's Hannibal's Series - Hannibal

The Iconic Element: Hannibal Lecter is cinema's greatest (read: you'd have dinner with him if you could veto the menu) cannibal, perhaps aside from the entire cast of Soylent Green. A concoction of calculating evil hid behind the guise of a cultured gentlemen, Lecter's become such an icon it's impossible to have a glass of chianti without doing that thing with your lips. No wonder there's five movies to his name. When It Was Actually Introduced: The development of Hannibal as a series is a rather strange one. He was always a part of the mythology of Thomas Harris' novels, serving as the key link between Red Dragon and The Silence Of The Lambs, but he was far from the key player. It was only after Anthony Hopkins took on the culinarily-creative doctor in the Oscar-gorging adaptation of the second book, unforgettable despite only twenty minutes of screen-time, that things changed. Since then, all subsequent novels and adaptations have put him front-and-centre, ignoring that that's not what the series is all about; Harris wrote Hannibal and Hannibal Rising to capitalise on the character's popularity, while Red Dragon expanded Lecter's role because Brett Ratner hates not coasting on someone else's hard work. Even NBC's Hannibal, which is ostensibly adapting Red Dragon (because the network doesn't have the rights to The Silence Of The Lambs), has put Mads Mikkelsen's psychiatric psychopath front-and-centre, so dominating is his allure.