If season three truly is the last we’ll see of Bryan Fuller‘s "Hannibal," it’s going out with a bang. Comic-Con was the place where an epic trailer for the remaining episodes of season three was unleashed, and if you’re like me, and have found the show this year patience testing and logic straining, this provides a lot of reasons to keep watching.
Leading the way is Richard Armitage who will be joining the show as Francis Dolarhyde aka the sociopathic serial killer Red Dragon. Played previously by Tom Noonan in "Manhunter" and Ralph Fiennes in "Red Dragon," it’s a classic character in Thomas Harris‘ series, but the TV iteration will go much deeper.
“There were two movies that spent about 90 minutes on that story, but we have six episodes and the book is incredibly detailed," Armitage said at Comic-Con (via Collider). "So we get to look at the backstory and open up that story to include his innocence with his darkness. His story isn’t told in a linear way. You learn of his crimes first, and then retrace where they came from.”
READ MORE: How The Surprising Moral Strength Of ‘Hannibal’ Helps To Make It One Of TV’s Best Dramas
Meanwhile, Red Dragon’s arrival will force the FBI to make a new alliance with their former profiler. "…the [events of season three] would change the Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham dynamic in a huge way—which would reinvent the format of how we tell the show ,” Fuller said at Comic-Con. Hugh Dancy added that the relationship between Will and Hannibal would “almost return it to the form of the first season, stylistically told differently.” However, that’s dependent on the show continuing.
Right now, things don’t look so good for the future of the show with Amazon and Netflix both passing, and Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy released from their contracts, but hope lives. Producer Martha Di Laurentiis, who also holds the rights to all the characters, has said she’s been approached by studios who are in making a Hannibal Lecter movie, but for now, she’s meeting with TV executives with Fuller as they try and keep the series alive.
“I think this finale wraps up the television series in a really good way and also is a platform for a launch in a new version of telling the story,” Fuller told EW about the a possible future.
And if it does manage a miracle and continue, Fuller said his choice to play rookie Clarice Starling would be Ellen Page or he’d switch up the ethnicity of the character and “have race play a factor in her character.”
There’s a lot of exciting possibilities on the horizon but the sand in the hourglass is running out. We’ll see if Hannibal lives another day or if the character will need to be rebooted (again). Check out the trailer below.