"NBC has found its "Hannibal" in Casino Royale and Clash of the Titans star Mads Mikkelsen, EW reports. Mikkelsen will play one of the world's most famous fictional serial killers, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, on the upcoming series.

Mikkelsen joins Hugh Dancy as FBI Agent Will Graham in the small screen adaptation of Thomas Harris' series of novels.

"It's not directly adapted," Dancy told ComingSoon.net in a recent interview, "because you'd begin with the backstory of 'Red Dragon', which is when Hannibal is still out and about and before he's even been identified as a criminal."

The show, written and produced by Bryan Fuller, has already been given a 13-episode commitment by the network."

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/tvnews.php?id=90987

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Bryan Fuller previously said the series is mapped out for seven (!!!) seasons. I wonder if it wll maske it past its first season, heh.

This is a very inspired casting choice, though. I am less sold on Damcy as Will Graham, though. Petersen and Norton have both been great in that role.

The leads are fantastic, but I just can't see this lasting, particularly not on NBC. I'll definitely tune in, though.

NBC announced yesterday that 'Hannibal' will premiere on Thursday, April 4th @ 10 PM ET.


http://www.deadline.com/2013/02/nbcs-hannibal-gets-thursday-10-pm-slot-april-premiere-date/

Bryan Fuller is fucking awesome, will be there April 4 fo sho.

This is going to get canned very fast. Not because of the quality but because its scheduled on its thursday 10 pm death slot and that there is no advertising at all from NBC about the show. We are just less than 2 months from the premiere

I can see Mads Mikkelsen as a young Hannibal Lecter, even though he's much taller than Hopkins, but the idea of a TV series for this franchise is just going to be bad. TV waters everything down. I'm not a huge lover of the franchise, but I'd never want it to have this fate.

I'll watch but this is going to bomb.

Yeah, I figured this would be put on Fridays either before or after 'Grimm'.

Color me surprised. The show has been getting great reviews. Maybe it will be the decent tv thriller that the Following failed to be.

I'm excited for this. I wanted to watch it before the great reviews but now I'm even more excited for it. Fucking NBC though, putting this on Thursday night to die. Could it have worse lead-ins? This would have been better suited for cable. The pilot should have premiered after an episode of The Voice.

Wish A&E or AMC had this. Show would run for years on either one. Or even Showtime, Starz, or HBO so they could go unedited with the violence.

This

I agree.

Yeah don't see it making it since it is on the worst timeslot. NBC have idiots in scheduling they ruined Awake doing the same thing.

I didn't like this at all. It's way too weird and was really difficult to get into. I thought it was boring. Even if a decent amount of people tune into the premiere I don't think they'll stick around. Just too odd. I don't believe I'll continue watching. Very disappointing.

I liked it quite a bit. The Graham/Lecter relationship completely works. (I do worry that it's too slow and 'artistic' for mainstream audiences. It ends on a quiet character beat and not a giant twist, for God's sake.)

Kind of sucked. Main problem was inevitable: no one can possibly compare to Hopkins as Lecter. All the stupid artistic flourishes involving Graham at crime scenes were lame and really off-putting. Show will have a decent premiere probably but won't get a second season.

I didn't like them either. I hate to say it but I would have preferred it to be more straight-forward.

Yeah, people act like there's a problem with being straight-forward but there isn't. Like a paper you write for school or a newspaper article, you're job is to hook people right away by getting to the point. Introducing a weird flourish like they did pretty much right away is a good way to kill interest.

The whole foundation requires us to understand how Graham thinks, and that works so much better than him just talking into a tape recorder like in Manhunter and Red Dragon. Show, don't tell.

Meh . While watching it I thought, "I won't be surprised if people turn this off after the odd opening."

Not when the process of showing causes the show to bog down like it's a car stuck in mud. Also, they got something wrong. Asperger's is no long a thing. The latest DSM manual eliminated it.

That's not what it did, but okay. And considering the show started trending on Twitter about twenty minutes in, I don't think people turned it off after the opening.

It sure did. Starting to see why NBC debuted it in April instead of holding it for next season. When the ratings tank a few episodes in, they can cancel it right then or at the end of the season without much press as the expectations will be low since a lot of it will be airing during the Summer.