Hugh Dancy believes that Hannibal could return in four or five years

As an enormous fan of NBC's surprisingly excellent Hannibal series, it was a tough day when the show was finally cancelled after three seasons, although, to be fair, they kept it on the air for about two seasons longer than I had ever expected they would. Upon its cancellation, there was talk of the series being picked up by another network or a possible movie to wrap things up, but with creator Bryan Fuller and stars Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen becoming increasingly busy with other projects, it may be a while before we see any movement on the Hannibal revival front.

While speaking with TVLine, Hugh Dancy said that although he believes everyone is willing to do it, we're still a good four or five years away from actually seeing it all come together.

My feeling is that, knock on wood, if it came around again, it wouldn’t be a bad thing for it to be four or five years later. That might actually be kind of interesting. How weird would that be, on a personal level, to find yourself back with those people? ‘So… where did we leave off?'

Of course there's no guarantee that Hannibal will return, I certainly won't be holding my breath, but Dancy believes that giving the series a lengthy break could be a good thing. "It’s such a strange idea, but it’s potentially very healthy for a story like that. So we’ll see.” If the series does return, creator Bryan Fuller has said that it will likely be based on "The Silence of the Lambs." That does bring up one problem however, Hugh Dancy's character of Will Graham doesn't have much of a presence in that particular Hannibal story, but Hugh Dancy said Fuller had "envisioned taking some elements of that novel and reworking it through the Will-Hannibal relationship." It'd certainly be a treat to see Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen back as Will Graham and Hannibal once more, but like I said, I won't be holding my breath. Well, maybe a little.