Preparing to Feast on ‘Hannibal’

Literary agent Mort Janklow was in his office here last week when the call came from a familiar voice: “It’s finished, Mort,” the caller said, “and it’s going to be in your office tomorrow.”

The caller was author Thomas Harris and “it” was his 10-years-in-the-works sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs,” the bestseller that became 1991’s Oscar-winning film starring Anthony Hopkins as the flesh-and-Chianti-loving Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as the FBI “profiler,” Clarice Starling, who chases him.

Janklow said the 600-page manuscript, titled “Hannibal,” arrived by FedEx the next day and he immediately plunged in for a 24-hour read, calling Harris once with a progress report before finishing it at home at 2 a.m. last Thursday.

“I told him it was a brilliant, brilliant achievement and worth waiting for . . . the reason I was in this business. It is, in my judgment, the finest work of literary suspense I have ever read,” said the agent, whose Madison Avenue firm, Janklow & Nesbit Associates, also represents the likes of Tom Wolfe and Michael Crichton.

The sudden appearance of “Hannibal” has reverberated a continent away in Hollywood.

What fascinates the movie industry is that not only could film rights to “Hannibal” soar to record levels, it also holds the promise of reuniting Hopkins, Foster and director Jonathan Demme--who each won Academy Awards for their work in “The Silence of the Lambs.”

“I think it is everybody’s intention” to make the sequel, said Bob Bookman of Creative Artists Agency, who will negotiate Harris’ film rights, and who also is co-agent for Demme.

Hopkins is said to be seriously entertaining the idea of reprising his role as “Hannibal the Cannibal,” the soft-spoken psychiatrist with an appetite for human organs.

“The idea of doing a sequel is something that appeals to him tremendously, but there hasn’t been anything to base it on until now,” said a spokeswoman for Hopkins.

Foster, who is currently in the Far East filming “Anna and the King,” has also expressed a desire in years past to play Starling in a sequel, a spokeswoman noted, “but there was never any project.”

But the cost of making a sequel would be steep.

To begin with, sources say, the film rights to Harris’ book could top the $8-million price reportedly paid by Disney’s Touchstone Pictures in 1996 for Crichton’s book “Airframe,” or the nearly $8 million paid by Warner Bros. for John Grisham’s “The Runaway Jury.”

“We’re not in the record-setting game” for a movie sale, Janklow said. “My primary interest is to get the best possible dramatization . . . and also to get the best possible deal in that context.”

Sources say Foster and Hopkins could each command $15 million to reprise their roles, while Demme’s directing fee could range between $5 million and $10 million. And that doesn’t include the fee for screenwriter Ted Tally or the producers.

“You’re talking about a movie that could easily cost $100 million to make,” said a source close to the parties, who noted that “The Silence of the Lambs” cost only $22 million.

Janklow said Hopkins and Foster were among those getting copies of the manuscript any day now, through Demme.

“We have creative relationships,” the agent said. “We’ve all been talking in anticipation of this arrival. . . . My relationship with Tom is very close but I never push him. I had a sense that the book was going to come in [soon].

“We’re in no hurry, [but] it will make an absolutely unbelievable movie,” he added. “The first order of priority is to get the best picture possible.”

Though the film and its performances have been universally acclaimed, one person who has not seen it, Janklow said, is Harris himself.

“He has never seen ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ quite deliberately,” he said. “He doesn’t want to be visualizing characters he has seen. He’d love to see it but it would infringe on his own vision. He doesn’t want to be imagining Anthony Hopkins.”

But Janklow himself called the first movie “a perfect realization” of the book, and said he hoped the team could reunite for the sequel. “I’d like it to be as perfect a translation of this book as ‘Silence’ was.”

While most studios would jump at the chance to make the sequel, the inside track is held by Universal Studios and producer Dino De Laurentiis, who long ago received rights of first negotiation/last refusal on any Harris book that features the Hannibal Lecter character. A copy of Harris’ manuscript has been sent to the island of Malta, where De Laurentiis is overseeing another film.

“Our intention is to buy the book,” said Shirley Delovich, who heads development at the Dino De Laurentiis Co. Although she has not yet read the manuscript, Delovich said the title alone--”Hannibal”--is enough to make people want to see the movie.

Copies of the manuscript have also been sent to screenwriter Tally, who won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for “The Silence of the Lambs,” and to producer Ed Saxon.

Landing the rights could certainly give a morale boost to Universal, which has been wracked with turmoil in its executive suites and, for more than a year, has sought to regain its footing at the box office.

Few doubt that Universal won’t make a serious bid for “Hannibal,” even if the price is high.

“These are people who just spent $130 million for ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ with Jim Carrey,” said one Hollywood insider. “My guess is they will make the deal [for “Hannibal”] if the book is as good as the hype.”

How Universal got in a position to bid on “Hannibal” took a complicated path.

It began when De Laurentiis bought the rights to an earlier Harris book called “Red Dragon,” which the producer eventually turned into a 1986 film called “Manhunter.” The movie, directed by Michael Mann, featured the Lecter character in a supporting role, played by Brian Cox.

When the film did not become the hit he envisioned, De Laurentiis passed on “The Silence of the Lambs.” But the producer did retain the rights to Lecter’s name, which he then granted to Orion on a one-picture basis.

The rest was history. The film became an instant hit and went on to win five Academy Awards.

Later, De Laurentiis and then-Universal studio chief Tom Pollock struck a deal on a Sam Raimi-directed film called “Army of Darkness.” Under the deal, Universal was given first negotiation and last refusal rights to any “Silence” sequel written by Harris.

By 1992, however, De Laurentiis and Universal were battling each other in court over who had the distribution rights to any sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs.”

De Laurentiis alleged that the studio had tried to “blackmail” him into surrendering his sequel rights. Universal based its claim to a sequel on a purported oral agreement. The case was eventually settled.

But while Universal and De Laurentiis have first negotiation rights, there are other complications.

To begin with, while Lecter was in the book, Foster’s character was not. Orion retained the rights to her character and, when Orion went out of business, those rights were absorbed by MGM, which acquired the assets of the other defunct studio.

Should Universal decide the price is too high to acquire film rights to “Hannibal,” sources say, MGM could step up and make its own bid.