According to Deadline, Mads Mikkelsen, who’s just coming off a win for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his film The Hunt, as well as scoring a role in Thor 2, has been cast as Hannibal Lecter in NBC’s upcoming series Hannibal.
He’ll star opposite Hugh Dancy in the Bryan Fuller produced series that is based on Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon, which was already turned into a film back in 2003.
Dancy will play FBI Agent Will Graham and we’ll see both Graham and Lecter “at the beginning of their budding relationship. Graham a gifted criminal profiler on the hunt for a serial killer with the FBI, enlists the help of Dr. Lecter, one of the premier psychiatric minds in the country, with no clue about his darker side.”
Of course, Anthony Hopkins originally made the role of Hannibal Lecter famous back in 1991 with The Silence of the Lambs and now Mikkelsen will have to step into his shoes, and those are some very big shoes to fill.
I’ve always loved the Hannibal Lecter films, save Hannibal Rising and I’ve been looking forward to this TV series for a while. Admittedly, I can’t really see anyone but Hopkins playing the iconic role but it will be interesting to see what Mikkelsen will do with it.
What do you think? Can Mikkelsen fill Hopkins’ shoes?
