FAQ for
Hannibal (2001) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Hannibal can be found at here.

Yes. The movie is based on Hannibal, a 1999 novel by American writer Thomas Harris. The novel was adapted for the movie by American screenwriters and David Mamet and Steven Zaillian. Hannibal is a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs (1991). It was followed by a second sequel, Hannibal Rising (2007) and one prequel Red Dragon (2002), also based on novels by Thomas Harris. Prior to The Silence of the Lambs, there was another Hannibal Lector movie, Manhunter (1986), also based on Harris' 1981 novel, Red Dragon.

According to the film, Mason Verger is the only surviving victim of Dr. Lecter. What about Will Graham, then?

The original film to feature Graham and Lecter, Manhunter, wasn't much of a success, and Red Dragon was re-adapted a year after Hannibal was made by a different screenwriter. The character of Will Graham was not mentioned in Silence of the Lambs either.

In the novels, it is said that there are three known surviving victims: Verger, Graham, and an unnamed third victim residing in a mental hospital in Colorado.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_%28film%29#Differences_from_the_novel

No. The packaging is obviously different, but the content on each of the DVDs is exactly the same.

In an interview for Total Film magazine, Foster said:

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The official reason I didn't do Hannibal is I was doing another movie, Flora Plum. So I get to say, in a nice dignified way, that I wasn't available when that movie was being shot... Clarice meant so much to Jonathan and I, she really did, and I know it sounds kind of strange to say but there was no way that either of us could really trample on her.

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Yes, Fincher was originaly going to be the director of Hannibal. He dropped out of the project for unknown reasons.

Benjamin Raspail was the man whose severed head was found by Clarice in the locked storage garage in the beginning of Silence of the Lambs. In that movie, Hannibal Lecter identified the head as belonging to Raspail, but claims not to have killed him, merely that he concealed Raspail's remains as he found them. Lecter later claims Raspail was killed by his (Raspail's) lover, who is the same person as Buffalo Bill.

However, during the conversation between Clarice and Paul Krendler in the archives in Hannibal, Clarice casually mentions that Hannibal killed Benjamin Raspail in order to improve the quality of the orchestra Raspail played in, since he was such a dreadful player; this claim is also confirmed in the opening scene of Red Dragon, where Hannibal feeds parts of Raspail's corpse to the unknowing members of the orchestra board. This would mean that Hannibal was actually lying to Clarice in Silence.

But there are some differences between the novel Silence of the Lambs and the movie that may otherwise account for this discrepancy. In the book, Raspail was indeed Hannibal's victim; the head in the storage belonged to Klaus, who was Raspail's boyfriend. Klaus was actually killed by a jealous Buffalo Bill, who was once Raspail's lover. In the movie, the character of Klaus was omitted completely, perhaps to avoid introducing characters that had no significant role in the plot. Probably because it was important to establish Buffalo Bill's first kill, which started his career as a serial killer, Raspail was made Bill's first victim, and not one of Hannibal's.

However, Silence was produced by Orion pictures, while the later movies Hannibal and Red Dragon were made in the care of Dino De Laurentiis. So one could say that Silence of the Lambs forms a continuity which, technically speaking, is seperate from Hannibal and Red Dragon (although the vast majority of elements in the continuity are shared). Hannibal and Red Dragon may adhere more strictly to the continuity in the novel Silence of the Lambs, and less to the movie.

Then again, Ted Tally was the screenwriter of both Silence and Red Dragon, so this means that if Hannibal is sincere, Tally's screenplays technically contradict each other. Again, this could be a deliberate break in continuity, with Silence treated as a seperate continuity. The other reasoning is that the movies form one single continuity, which means Hannibal either retcons this fact, or Hannibal is simply lying to Clarice.

The song is called Vide Cor Meum (English: See My Heart). Composed especially for the movie by Patrick Cassidy, the song was later used in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.

In Ridley Scott's commentary on the film, he says that the reason they walk right past Lecter is a combination of a) the fact that Lecter is standing still (whether they consider him no harm or an inadequate food supply is unclear), and b) that the boars feel an "animal connection" of sorts with Lecter (in other words, they sense Lecter as another animal and leave him alone).

Another possibility would be that the hogs were attracted to blood and were accustomed to feeding while hearing screams. Since Lecter wasn't screaming, and obviously had no blood on him, they walked past him and went straight to the source of the screams.

In the novel of Hannibal, it is said that the boars smelled no fear on him, so they went past him to eat the other people in the pen (again, implying that the boars only went for the screams).

Short answer: Yes and no.

Critical response to the movie was very mixed. According to the critic review site Rotten Tomatoes, the general consensus was:

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While superbly acted and stylishly filmed, Hannibal lacks the character interaction between the two leads which made the first movie so engrossing.

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