Fans of the Hannibal TV series have been eager for a possible reunion and fourth season ever since the show was cancelled back in 2015. However, CBS's new Clarice series may have stopped that from happening any time in the near future.
CBS released a first trailer for Clarice on Dec 9th, with a February 11th air date currently on the cards. The series follows FBI agent Clarice Starling as she investigates various criminals and killers after the events of The Silence of the Lambs.
The Silence of the Lambs was released in 1991, and was based on the 1988 novel of the same name by Thomas Harris. It featured Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as the cannibal serial killer, Hannibal Lecter. The film swept the Academy Awards, winning the big five (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Adapted Screenplay), only the third film in history to do so.
When Hannibal ended, the three seasons had gone about reinventing and reworking the events of the Hannibal Lecter novels and film adaptations. Season 1 dealt with events before Red Dragon (Book 1), Season 2 tackled Mason Verger, the antagonist from the Hannibal novel (Book 3), and Season 3 used Red Dragon's antagonist, Francis Dolarhyde. A Season 4 was slated to deal with the events of Silence of the Lambs (Book 2), introduce Buffalo Bill and, more importantly, Clarice Starling.
However, in the time since the show ended and the rumors kept circulating, the reigns of the Hannibal Lecter legacy have passed to CBS. The series is reported to not involve the character of Hannibal Lecter in any way, but instead focus on Clarice's continued efforts to track down serial killers in the Behavioral Psychology unit of the FBI, bridging the gap between The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal.
This, however, causes the conflict of interest. Would NBC, who produced Hannibal, be likely to commission a fourth series after several years off the air, featuring a character that another series, produced by another network, is also using? The answer is probably not, unless Clarice absolutely smashes all ratings expectations. Additionally, considering the two series would be released fairly close together (give or take a few years), the producers of Hannibal would need to cast another actress as Starling, and having two Clarice Starlings on air within a small period of time would be strange, confusing and potentially damaging. Even worse than that, they would have to secure the rights to the story from MGM, something they hadn't been able to do in years prior.
There is some slight hope for fans of the show. As the timelines for both series would be very slightly different, with Hannibal tackling the events of Silence of the Lambs and Clarice dealing with its subsequent ramifications, producers might see that as a different enough storyline to warrant green-lighting. And if Clarice ends up being a runaway success, it might tempt producers to revive Hannibal. Until the fallout of the new series is in the books, however, it seems likely that the chances for a series revival may be slim.