One of the more promising projects coming to television is NBC's series about the pre-incarcerated years of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The character often voted as the most iconic villain of all-time is coming to the small screen courtesy of Bryan Fuller who, after his great but unappreciated work on Pushing Daisies, couldn't be better suited for the assuredly macabre series simply titled Hannibal. The script from Fuller and Gaumont International Television must have impressed the NBC brass since a pilot quickly turned into a 13 episode order. Trying to stay step for step with his other high profile project at the National Broadcasting Company - a remake of The Munsters called Mockingbird Lane, which just cast Eddie Izzard to star - Hannibal has also announced its own leading man. No, not the cannibal, the other lead.
TVline is reporting that Hugh Dancy has been cast in the role FBI Agent/Profiler Will Graham. The role was previously played by William Peterson and Edward Norton in the two cinematic adaptations of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon. Those are some pretty big shoes to fill but where the films focus on the aftermath and traumatic fallout of the Graham and Lecter working relationship, Hannibal will feature a slightly more idealistic Graham since he's only beginning his dangerous partnership with the twisted and brilliant psychologist. That's not to say the profiler won't still be disturbed and tortured by his empathetic connection to the psychopaths he hunts, but at least he won't have the additional baggage that comes with a near fatal knife wound at the hands of your mentor. Yet.
Hugh Dancy seems like a great fit for the relatively straight-laced and brooding part since he got his fair share of dealing with the mentally disturbed in last year's Martha Marcy May Marlene opposite Elizabeth Olsen. Of course, the question of who will play his mentally disturbed counterpart in the series still remains. I won't stop pushing for Cillian Murphy until the official Dr. Hannibal Lecter casting comes through but it was brought to my attention that he's probably too young, especially since he's younger than Dancy. Well, how about David Hyde Pierce for an age appropriate and interesting choice? What actor could you see as the fourth incarnation of the iconic character?
