Showrunner Bryan Fuller talks HANNIBAL season 3

It’s been a damn good couple of weeks for quality TV. Shows like Mad Men and The American have delivered some shocking yet brilliant content, and if you’re not caught up yet on Hannibal, then you might want to avoid this post. It’s all about season three, the direction of the show and who done what spoilers. You have been warned, with a nice glass of Chianti and fava beans I might add.

Speaking to Collider, creator and showrunner Bryan Fuller had plenty of those beans to spill about the upcoming greenlit third season. One of the first things that season 3 will address says Fuller, is Bedelia’s master-plan and motives:

Well, I think we can assume that some communication [with Hannibal and Bedelia] happened between episode 12 [and the finale] — between her capture by the FBI and the time she got on the flight. So, part of that, the fun in that, will be revealed in the first episode of Season 3 – exactly why she was on that plane, what is her agenda, and how she fits into the bigger story of Season 3. That’s all going to be wrapped up in that first episode of Season 3, which will function almost like a pilot for a new series.”

This of course includes making actress Gillian Anderson a full member of the cast in season 3, which she’ll juggle with her other series, The Fall:

We are hoping, depending on Gillian’s schedule, that she would be a regular, but that’s all down to negotiation and her availability, and that sort of thing. But, you know, I went into Season 2 wanting Gillian to be a series regular and that’s definitely the intention going into Season 3, is that we would love a lot more of Gillian Anderson, because that’s never a bad thing.

As for length, Fuller says that he thinks he’ll pull the plug on the show if it makes it to a sixth season, instead of the seven season plan that he alluded to when the show first stared:

Well, as we’ve gotten further into this series, I’ve collapsed a couple of seasons in my mind now. As in, ‘I don’t think we would be able to sustain the 13 episodes for that arc that I thought we would have’ and ‘perhaps it’s better to collapse this season and this season into one.’ So, I’m really thinking a six-season arc, and that really keeps us from treading water.

The biggest question however, is how will Hannibal tie into the original stories written by Thomas Harris, that introduced the world to the cannibalistic doctor. Fuller says that we’ll see a third season that draws from two of those books, namely Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, before season four uses Red Dragon for material:

Season 3 is going to be a lot of fun because it’s going to be taking a lot of disparate elements from the novel Hannibal Rising and the novel Hannibal and mashing them up together as part of the thrust of the season. It’s going to be fun to bastardize two novels into one sort of Frankenstein season. I will brace everybody right now: We’re significantly changing the Hannibal origin story from Hannibal Rising.

So the source material may be altered, but fret not. You’ll see a few familiar faces from the books introduced:

The books won’t necessarily be in sequential order. We’ll be hitting elements of each of them except Silence of the Lambs in the next season. My hope is that not only do we have a completely different Hannibal Lecter story in Season 3, but we will meet some of those great characters like Francis Dolarhyde and Lady Murasaki and weave them into the world in a unique way.”

 

Last Updated: May 28, 2014