For those who haven’t heard, NBC has greenlighted (greenlit?) a new TV series based on Thomas Harris’s novel Red Dragon, the first book to feature Hannibal Lecter. (Two movie versions isn’t enough after all.) Story.
Apparently it’s to be about the crime solving partnership of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter before the former discovered the latter’s little secret.
Ignoring in the OP the 3,192 reasons this is one of the worst ideas for a series since COP ROCK (though feel no need to ignore it in the thread) or speculating on how many times the name DEXTER was mentioned in the meeting, it does give the opportunity to recast an iconic role.
Who would you cast? The actor should obviously be much younger than Anthony Hopkins, probably 40s around this time of his career though a few years on either side could perhaps work, sophisticated, possibly English or European (in the later novels Hannibal is identified as Lithuanian but that’s not at all a deal breaker), brilliant, and a remorseless murderer and cannibal. (I’m assuming they’re going to drop the maroon eyes/11 fingers bit just as they did in the movies and the last novel.) The obvious choice is Scott Baio, but he’s apparently semi-retired. So… my pics:
James Frain- we know from True Blood he can be terrifying and from other work that he can be seductive.
Adrian Brody could conceivably work as well. He wouldn’t be the first Oscar winner to do TV, and he’s believable as “haunted and from someplace other than here but not quite identifiable”. Frain would be first choice though.
Any other suggestions? Or comments in general? And am I alone in thinking this has “first cancellation fo the new season” written all over it?
Bryan Cranston, simply because he is quality and he’ll be free after Breaking Bad finishes shooting. But I somehow doubt he’d touch something so potentially bad.
I don’t even think anyone can do this character justice after Anthony Hopkins. I can’t even think about the movies without cringing and sinking in my chair a little bit. His eyes are so haunting and burn into the back of your brain. I was actually initially thinking of David Caruso as well, but sometimes I just can’t take him seriously… His one-liners on CSI make me laugh.
Which book features Hannibal “storing” information in his brain via the device of a large room full of drawers? Then when he’s trying to remember something, he has to mentally go down halls and open the correct drawer to retrieve the information? Because in that book, he is relentlessly described as having a smooth, otter-like head … to the point I was beginning to imagine him with tiny little ears poking out the sides of his head.
Anyway, I’m trying to picture some small compact actor with a smooth otter-like head. Kevin Spacey is the only person that comes to mind.