Hannibal invited music icon David Bowie to play the title character's mysterious uncle Count Robert on the NBC series. The Hannibal franchise wasn't in great shape when the TV show debuted in 2013. The previous movie Hannibal Rising was a prequel detailing the character's origin and how he became a cannibal, but it was a critical and financial disappointment. The NBC series acted as a reimagining of the books, with a focus put on the complex relationship between troubled FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and his therapist/secret serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen).
Hannibal lasted for three seasons and built up an adoring fanbase for its unique tone and lavish use of gore. Sadly, the show ended on something of a literal cliffhanger, and despite efforts to revive it in the years since, it has yet to return. CBS recently launched their own spinoff show with Clarice, which follows Clarice Starling in the aftermath of Silence Of The Lambs. Reviews for the sequel series have been mixed thus far, and for legal reasons, the character of Hannibal can never appear.
One character from the novels who didn't appear in the Hannibal series is the title character's uncle Count Robert Lecter, who first appeared in Hannibal Rising. While Robert in the novel is short-lived and ultimately doesn't play a major role, showrunner Bryan Fuller had big plans for the Count on Hannibal. In fact, he first offered the role to David Bowie during the second season, who expressed interest.
Fuller recalls that the production reached out to Bowie about playing Count Robert several times on Hannibal, with the musician responding he was busy working on music but also asking they reach out again to check his schedule in the future. With the singer's passing in 2016, Fuller realized in retrospect that Bowie was sick when the role was being offered. The showrunner wanted Bowie because when he was trying to envision someone as cool as Mads Mikkelsen, the singer was the person who immediately came to mind.
While the exact plan for Uncle Robert's role on Hannibal has yet to be revealed, Fuller did say that much of the character's function in season 3 was eventually passed to Tao Okamoto's Chiyoh. In the book, Chiyoh was the maid to Robert and his wife Murasaki, and in the show, Will finds her at the old Lecter estate in Lithuania, imprisoning the man who apparently killed Hannibal's sister. She helps fill Will in on some of Hannibal's past and later acts as something of a protector to Hannibal.
Fuller hinted in a 2015 interview with TVLine that Count Robert may have been the one responsible for Bedelia's predicament in the Hannibal season 3 post-credit scene. If so, this could imply that Robert was also into cannibalism, and may have even been a mentor to Hannibal. While it would have been fantastic to see David Bowie on the series, tragically, it wasn't meant to be.