2007 prequel movie Hannibal Rising attempted to fill in Dr. Lecter's backstory, but ended up either boring most fans to tears or making them mad. Hannibal Lecter is one of the most iconic villains in all of pop culture, and probably also the most famous cannibal in movie history, which is a title there's actually more competition for than one might expect. A psychiatrist by trade and a serial killer by passion, Hannibal understands the human mind better than most maniacs, enabling him to more easily manipulate potential prey.
Hannibal is also suave, sophisticated, and charming when encountered socially, making him a character that's endlessly fascinating to observe, whether that be through his big screen movies, critically acclaimed TV series, or of course the Thomas Harris books from which he first emerged. However, among that lot, there's a clear black sheep on both the page and screen: Hannibal Rising, first a 2006 book and then a 2007 movie, both written by Harris.
On paper, the idea of a prequel revealing Hannibal's rather mysterious past sounds like an idea with a lot of potential. Digging into what makes a man like that tick can often be very interesting. That said, revealing Hannibal's backstory also risked demystifying him too much, and wearing away at his mystique. In the end though, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that both the book and movie were awful.
Why Hannibal Rising Turned Out So Poorly
It's well-documented that late movie producer Dino de Laurentiis always regretted his decision not to participate in The Silence of the Lambs, despite possessing the movie rights to Hannibal Lecter. Since Manhunter had flopped, de Laurentiis let Orion Pictures use Hannibal in their movie for free, essentially costing himself tens of millions of dollars in profit. He kept an iron grip on Hannibal Lecter for decades after, up until his death, with Hannibal's screen rights now controlled by Dino's wife Martha.
After 2001's Hannibal and 2002's Red Dragon both made big bucks at the box office, de Laurentiis found himself wanting more Hannibal Lecter movies. The problem was, there weren't any more books to mine for material. Never one to give up, de Laurentiis approached Thomas Harris with the idea of a Hannibal Lecter prequel. Harris had absolutely zero interest in writing one, and had seemingly ended Hannibal's saga with his namesake book. That didn't matter to de Laurentiis, who effectively coerced Harris into writing the Hannibal Rising book, then adapting that into a film script.
Harris gave in because, as de Laurentiis made no secret about publicly, the producer threatened him with the idea of another writer crafting the backstory of Harris' signature character. He essentially told Harris that if he didn't write Hannibal Rising, de Laurentiis would find another writer and make the prequel without him. With that in mind, it's no wonder Hannibal Rising turned out as bad as it did. Harris didn't write it out of creative impulse, he wrote it under emotional duress. To make matters worse, de Laurentiis didn't even get the box office hit he wanted out of Hannibal Rising, as the film failed to even double its budget.