Hannibal could one day return with an adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs.
While nothing is in the works yet, series creator Bryan Fuller shared with Screen Rant at the Toronto International Film Festival that his “dream project is to do a limited series of Silence of the Lambs with Mads [Mikkelsen] and Zendaya as Clarice Starling. If I could put anything out into the universe, I would put that into the universe.”
The Silence of the Lambs was the only one of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter novels not to be, at least partially, adapted on Hannibal, with characters and elements from Red Dragon, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising instead being used through its three seasons on NBC.
Fuller and Mads Mikkelsen, who portrayed Hannibal Lecter in the series, have both repeatedly stated since Hannibal went off the air in 2015 that they both want to revive the show so that they could cover the events of The Silence of the Lambs, which is easily the best-known work to feature the notorious cannibalistic serial killer, due largely to the 1991 film adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.
Zendaya Is an Interesting Choice for Clarice Starling
Zendaya would certainly be an unexpected choice for the role of Clarice Starling, the young FBI trainee who in The Silence of the Lambs is hunting the serial killer “Buffalo Bill”. The actor would never have been on Fuller’s radar back in the mid-2010s when Hannibal was still airing, as she was still in her Disney Channel era. However, in the decade since, Zendaya has emerged as a major talent in the industry, appearing in blockbuster franchises like Spider-Man and Dune and winning Emmys for Euphoria.
She remains booked and busy too, with confirmed roles in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three, and DreamWorks’ Shrek 5. If Clarice Starling is a role she is interested in playing, Fuller would be wise to lock her down, as her involvement in the potential adaptation could be enough to finally get NBC or its sister streaming platform Peacock to pull the trigger on a fourth and final season of Hannibal.
Do you want to see Bryan Fuller tackle an adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs? Could you see Zendaya as Clarice? Give us your thoughts down in the comments!
