CBS' upcoming series Clarice -- a sequel to 1991's The Silence of the Lambs --won't even be able to mention Dr. Hannibal Lecter's name due to legal restraints.
Executive Producer Jenny Lumet recently confirmed that Clarice won't mention Hannibal in an interview with EW. Lumet explained that the rights to Thomas Harris’ characters are divided between MGM and the Dino De Laurentiis Company, making their use complicated.
"I'm still trying to understand how the rights are divided," executive producer Alex Kurtzman added. "But it's been quite liberating because we have no interest in writing about Hannibal -- not because we didn't love the films and the show, but because it was done so well by so many people that it didn't feel fresh for us."
Clarice can only include the Harris characters that did not appear in NBC’s Hannibal series. In addition to the titular character Clarice Starling, this also includes her colleague Ardelia Mapp (Devyn Tyler), Deputy Assistant Attorney General Paul Krendler (Michael Cudlitz) and the late serial killer, Buffalo Bill.
It was previously reported that Clarice is set in 1993, one year after the events in Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs, which starred Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The new series will find the show's fictional version of the FBI dealing with the aftermath of real-life disasters, including Waco and Ruby Ridge, and the first World Trade Center bombing. Like the film, Clarice will explore the previously male-dominated world of law enforcement in which the titular character must navigate.
Kurtzman also revealed in the interview, however, that Season 1 of Clarice won't necessarily center on a specific serial killer. "We're looking for not to repeat what Demme did, because I think the biggest mistake that we could make would be to mirror the style of that," Kurtzman explained. "We harness the spirit of it and ask, 'What was he doing that was so meaningful and how do we interpret it now, 30 years later, for a modern audience?'"
Clarice stars Rebecca Breeds as Clarice Starling, Michael Cudlitz as Paul Krendler, Lucca de Oliveira as Tomas Esquivel, Kal Penn as Shaan Tripathi, Nick Sandow as Agent Clarke, Devyn Tyler as Ardelia Mapp and Marnee Carpenter as Catherine Martin. The series premieres on Feb. 11, 2021, at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT on CBS and CBS All Access.
Source: EW