9 Terrible Franchise Killing Movies

While Anthony Hopkins was lured back to play Hannibal a couple of times following Silence Of The Lambs, there wasn’t a cheque large enough that would convince him to be a part of Hannibal Rising. Based on the poorly received prequel novel, which unwisely decided to explore the character’s origin, the producers tried to bring Hopkins in for a wraparound cameo; he wasn’t having any of it.

That left it up to charisma vortex Gaspard Ulliel to fill in, and he doesn’t have one tenth of Hopkins screen presence. It doesn’t help that the film is telling a story that really doesn’t need to be told since all it does is demystify the character. It’s a rather boring revenge plot at the end of the day, where the only thing that holds the viewers attention is the lovely production design.

Hannibal Rising received nothing but bad reviews upon release, and since nobody was interested in seeing the further adventures of Young Hannibal the cinematic franchise was put to bed. The character later received much treatment in the awesome TV series, so at least this saga has a happy ending.