Movie News

DeLaurentiis to Keep Feeding Hannibal Lecter

The latest installment of the Hannibal Lecter Adventures in Eating series, "Hannibal Rising," begins hitting hits theaters next week. And as Variety reports, producer Dino De Laurentiis sees no reason why the feast at the box office should end any time soon.

"The future of 'Hannibal' is still strong. There are many aspects still to be told," De Laurentiis is quoted as saying. Leaving you to wonder whether or not he's been talking to Lecter mastermind Thomas Harris about future projects, or if he's thinking up his own angles for the cannibal killer's future screen endeavors. (Remember: Dino once famously said of his 1976 production of King Kong, "When the monkey die, people gonna cry.")

To date, the four Lecter films, including "Red Dragon," "Silence of the Lambs," and "Hannibal," have all been based on similarly-titled novels by Harris (who has also contributed the screenplay to the latest film). The 1986 Michael Mann production "Manhunter" was also based on "Red Dragon." "Hannibal Rising," which deals with a teenage Lecter and seeks to explain how he came to crave human flesh, is the first of the film since then to not feature Anthony Hopkins in the title role.

If anything, Dino simply seems excited about what "Hannibal Rising" seems to mean for the possibility of European cinema to mount large-scale productions, sans the usual Hollywood backing. "Because this is totally financed in Europe, with no American money, we have had full control of the product," says Tarak Ben Ammar, who shares a producer credit with De Laurentiis. Now, if only somebody would give Dario Argento a boost...