In Season 2, Hannibal moved away from its procedural beginnings, and began focusing on longer story arcs that delved deeper than ever, not only into the mind of Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), but also into the complicated dance between Hannibal and FBI agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). Still, the series held on to certain fundamentals of primetime television, even at its most strange. The same is not true for Season 3, where Fuller is completely creatively unleashed (or appears to be).

The third season is also the show’s most visually ambitious yet, with extremely esoteric aesthetics and a melange of images that wash over viewers like a muddled reverie, both revealing and obfuscating.

Alexhead wrote:Cake from a UK premiere party.

darkness wrote:If the rumors are true that a large part of the series ending is because they can't get the rights to the Silence of the Lambs characters for the next season, I'm not sure what the point of trying to move the show to another outlet would be.

/film wrote:Amazon and Netflix Pass on ‘Hannibal’ Fourth Season

NBC canceled Hannibal barely two weeks ago, and as is so often the case with shows that have a devoted fanbase, talk immediately began of a streaming service saving the series after its third season ends on NBC. The #saveHannibal hashtag gave rise to hopes of seeing Hannibal on Netflix or a similar service.

While creator and showrunner Bryan Fuller gave fans hope that salvation might not be too far away, now some of those hopes have been dashed. Netflix and Amazon, the latter being the series’ best hope, have both passed on Hannibal.

The fact that Netflix passed is, sadly, not a great surprise. Amazon already has exclusive rights to stream the first three seasons in North America, and without a rights package that includes earlier seasons, Hannibal doesn’t look like a good deal to Netflix. Additionally, other aspects of the deal under which Gaumont International Television produced the show and licensed it to other territories may have precluded a Netflix deal.

Then there’s Amazon, which due to the aforementioned deal for other seasons of the series, seemed like a more likely home. But as Fuller had said to Variety, “Without an NBC component, it’s a little complicated. Even some of our international partners, because there’s no NBC component, will pass on a fourth season.”

That may have continued to be a problem for Amazon. Additionally, we have to consider that options on contracts have expired for stars Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy, necessitating a new negotiation, and also that Bryan Fuller has to attend to the first season of American Gods before he could really get back to work on Hannibal. That’s quite a few hurdles that Amazon didn’t want to jump.

There are still cries for Hulu or another service to step in, but the same factors that are keeping Hannibal off Netflix and Amazon may also be problems for anyone else. We may learn more later this week when the Hannibal panel, featuring Fuller, exec producer Martha De Laurentiis, Hugh Dancy, and Richard Armitage takes the stage at Comic Con in San Diego. Or that may simply be the cast’s swan song on stage.