Last month, fans of NBC's Hannibal television series found themselves reeling when the network announced the cancellation of the show.

The news wasn't completely dim, as most fans held out hope that the series would get picked up elsewhere, such as another network or even Netflix.

It seems, however, that the series is completely done. Deadline has just reported that Hannibal's two main actors, Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen, were released from their contracts for the show. This means it's likely that both actors are busy searching for other roles to keep them busy.

That hasn't stopped Hannibal's production company from looking for other distributors. But with Dancy and Mikkelsen released from their contracts, it certainly makes things trickier — especially if they take on new work that would interfere with future production of Hannibal. The roles that these actors play on the show – Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter – are major and fans probably would not tolerate either role being recast, should the series find life after NBC.

The show would also have to continue without showrunner Bryan Fuller, who already took a new job heading up the Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

Netflix is unlikely to pick up the series, because Amazon currently has exclusive streaming rights for it.

Basically, things don't look good for Hannibal, and it's highly improbable that the series will live on elsewhere. 

At this point, all Hannibal fans can do is cry over their steak dinners and glasses of chianti while listening to Vivaldi. At least NBC plans on airing the rest of the third season, which we hope doesn't end on a cliffhanger. At least we have that.

The rest of Hannibal airs on NBC on Thursday nights.

Via Rope of Silicon

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