Anna Daniels
After NBC gave us a series focused squarely on The Silence of the Lambs serial killer Hannibal Lecter, CBS is looking to follow the classic movie with a sequel series called Clarice, focusing on Jodie Foster’s character of FBI agent Clarice Starling one year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs. However, the series doesn’t have any connection to the NBC series Hannibal.
Deadline has word on CBS picking up a pilot for Clarice from writer and executive producer Alex Kurtzman and executive producer Jenny Lumet. However, it sounds like CBS is already keen on taking the show to series because even though a pilot will be made before the final decision is made, a writers room for the series has already been put together. So you can expect this one to move forward at the network. Here’s what Kurztman and Lumet had to say about the series:
“After more than 20 years of silence, we’re privileged to give voice to one of America’s most enduring heroes – Clarice Starling. Clarice’s bravery and complexity have always lit the way, even as her personal story remained in the dark. But hers is the very story we need today: her struggle, her resilience, her victory. Her time is now, and always.”
The Silence of the Lambs sequel novel Hannibal, which was turned into a feature film sequel, picks up seven years after the events of the first story But the Clarice series will instead focus on “the untold personal story of Clarice Starling, as she returns to the field to pursue serial murderers and sexual predators while navigating the high stakes political world of Washington, D.C.” That means there’s no source material to go on, so the creators can do pretty much whatever they want to, though Hannibal Lecter is not expected to be part of the show at all. And it sounds like Clarice will also take place in 1993 instead of modern day like NBC’s Hannibal series.
This isn’t the first time that a series based around Clarice Starling has been attempted. Back in 2012, when NBC’s Hannibal was also just coming together, Lifetime was working on a series that would have followed Clarice Starling as a young FBI agent fresh out of the academy, but that attempt never moved forward.
Clarice will be produced by MGM, who holds the feature film rights to The Silence of the Lambs and associated characters, and Heather Kadin will also serve as an executive producer for Secret Hideout, with Aaron Baiers co-executive producing, alongside Kurtzman and Lumet.
Will the use of Clarice Starling as a character be different from any other crime procedural? Even though the character has an interesting arc in Silence of the Lambs, any series following her without the presence of Hannibal Lecter will probably just be your average network crime thriller. Stay tuned to see how this one pans out.
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