NBC’s Charming New Hannibal Lecter Will Eye-Bang Your Sister Before He Eats Her Liver

I was skeptical before, but now I’m in: Mads Mikkelsen will be playing the lead role in NBC’s “Hannibal,” the drama featuring characters from Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon. For those of you unfamiliar, Mads Mikkelsen is basically the baddest Danish motherf***ker on the planet. He eats Swedes like Joel Kinnaman for breakfast. You may know him as the villain in Casino Royale. In Valhalla Rising, he played a guy without a tongue who basically slayed everything in as gruesome a manner as possible without saying a word. He’ll be the lead villain in the upcoming Thor 2. He looks like a dead-eyed serial killer with just enough charm to eye-bang your sister before he rips out her intestines and strangles her with them.

In other words, he’s perfect. Hell, if this show were on HBO instead of NBC, I’d wager that Mikkelsen could pull off the job nearly as well as Anthony Hopkins. Alas, it is on NBC, but they’re doing well by it. In addition to Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy will play FBI Agent Will Graham; Dancy is a talented guy who is nevertheless third in his actor type (behind Lee Pace and Matthew Macfadyen but ahead of Jonny Lee Miller), and Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daises, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls) is the showrunner, which at the very least sugests the cinematography is going to be gorgeous. It’s also a 13-episode season, which is the perfect amount of episodes for a series like this one.

I can’t wait to see how NBC screws this one up. It’ll probably be the best thing on their schedule and they’ll air it on Fridays after “Grimm” with either zero promotion or or a wacky comedic promo they’ll air during their Thursday night comedies. “Do you like ‘The Office’! Well, you’re going to LOVE ‘Hannibal,’ NBC’s new drama about an offbeat serial killer with an eccentric eating disorder! Fridays this winter!”

Here’s some delightful imagery from Valhalla Rising that your subconscious can file away for future nightmares.

(Source: Deadline)