The ‘Hannibal’ cast reunited: Everything to know about season 4

There’s potentially a new season of Hannibal on the horizon! After the rough year of disappointment & disaster that is 2020, hearing the creator of Hannibal discuss new episodes is like music to our ears. 

Hannibal is a horror television series based on the story of Hannibal Lecter made famous in The Silence of the Lambs. The wonderfully weird series was unceremoniously cancelled in 2015 after Hannibal received low ratings but it has nonetheless garnered a passionate fanbase as a cult classic. Five years later Netflix added Hannibal to its library and shortly after the show became one of the top ten most popular on the site. 

Now there’s renewed interest in Hannibal, the show’s creator Bryan Fuller has hope that a fourth season will soon become a reality. As the Hannibal cast are eager to continue the story perhaps Netflix will bring the series back to life. 

Interview with the creators & cast 

On July 11, Nerdist brought together the Hannibal cast for their first reunion in five years. While it was wonderful seeing everyone back together to go over past seasons of Hannibal, it was even more exciting to hear Bryan Fuller tease some ideas for a fourth season. Apparently, Fuller has already begun developing options for a future plot-line. 

Fuller is quite hopeful that Hannibal season four could be made with the new attention that the show has received on Netflix. The cast of Hannibal, which includes Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Gillian Anderson, Caroline Dhavernas, and more also spoke about renewing the series. Mikkelsen, in particular, has been very vocal over the past five years about his support for another installment of Hannibal. 

Hannibal’s character development 

An intriguing tidbit that Fuller discussed during the Nerdist interview was the idea that he identified Hannibal as pansexual. Hannibal’s sexuality has been debated in the Hannibal fandom and many have speculated in the past about a burgeoning sexual relationship between Hannibal & Will. 

It was even hinted at by the end of the third season that Hannibal & Will’s relationship had reached a new level as Will asked Dr. Maurier point-blank if Hannibal was in love with him, which she affirmed. Yet Fuller isn’t sure that the rival’s connection will become sexual. 

Fuller still wants to remain true to the source material but he’s also interested in developing Hannibal’s sexuality further. Fuller stated that, “I don’t think Hannibal would want to have sex with Will if Will wasn’t in his right mind, and Will won’t be in his right mind in Season 4.”

Hope for the future 

Even though nothing concrete has been said about Hannibal season four, Fuller is excited about continuing developing ideas for the future. He’s even mentioned that he thinks Hannibal will have a change of scenery in season four, moving the show from the colder regions of Canada to somewhere “sunny and sweaty”. 

Fuller also plans to use the five-year hiatus as a plot device in Hannibal, saying “The great thing about the ideas that I have shared with members of the cast in terms of where we’re going is that if it takes five years, if everyone is interested in coming back, that’s just how long they’ve been on the lam, and the story will pick up from there and we’ll adapt.”

The most exciting comment Fuller made was his intention to bring the entire cast back – even those that died – for season four of Hannibal. Fuller said in the interview: “Believe me, if we get a season four, with all the mind palace bullshit of Will Graham’s broken mind, everyone is coming back . . .”

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It seems too good to be true to get another season of Hannibal but it appears the odds may be in our favor for once in 2020. Though new episodes of Hannibal would be years in the making considering the state of filming in the current climate, we still have our fingers crossed that Netflix does the world a solid and makes it happen.