Nuzzled deep within NBC’s summer schedule announcement lurks a piece of news that fans of Bryan Fuller’s dark serial killer drama (fannibals?) Hannibal have been desperate to hear: its season 3 release date. Our next scheduled visit to the compelling, twisted and downright bloody world of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter will be on Thursday, June 4th.
Alongside this exciting reveal came another brilliant tease from Fuller himself, as the show’s creator took to Twitter to post a new one-sheet poster for the upcoming season:
TUCK IN #HannibalReturnsJune4 @GillianA pic.twitter.com/Pq51nbTBCa
— Bryan Fuller (@BryanFuller) March 6, 2015
The poster shows Gillian Anderson, who was recently promoted to series regular, clutching onto an umbrella as Bedelia. Does the accompanying caption suggest that Bedelia is about to have a snack? Or is she about to become someone’s snack?
Whatever fate has in store for her, the upcoming season will also mark the return of Hugh Dancy as troubled FBI profiler Graham, alongside Mads Mikkelsen as the compellingly bonkers Lecter. For the most part, the season will harvest its core storylines from Thomas Harris’ best-selling source novels. Hannibal and Hannibal Rising are thought to be the main inspiration for the first handful of episodes, which is most likely when we’ll see the action transplanted abroad to Italy, before the plotlines from Red Dragon are then introduced.
Harris’ novels of course bring with them a flood of characters made popular by previous big-screen adaptations. The Tooth Fairy – who was played to perfection by Ralph Fiennes in Red Dragon – will appear in the shape of Richard Armitage, and Fuller teased at last year’s Comic-Con that the franchise’s “second-most famous” character was poised to make their small screen debut. Could it be that sweet orphan girl from West Virginia, who tried to save a lamb from slaughter?
Hannibal returns to NBC on Thursday, June 4th at 10pm.
