"I'm 80, I've been in the movie business over 30 years, and I know this: The only thing that matters is a good director and a good story. With those two things, I could play Starling. Within two minutes the audience will forget all about Jodie Foster - I promise you."
- Dino De Laurentiis, producer of Hannibal, in Entertainment Weekly

"Dino's attitude was fuck it, move on! After Anna and the King [Foster's recent $39 million-grossing disappointment], the thinking was, 'Good, what did Jodie Foster really bring anyway?'"
- unnamed source close to De Laurentiis

Nobody ever lost money underestimating the American public, but I suspect Hannibal's production team is premature in their dreams of glory. They don't realize how crucial Jodie Foster was to the success of Jonathan Demme's critically acclaimed 1991 thriller, The Silence of the Lambs.

Everyone remembers Anthony Hopkins, of course, who brought a sense of showmanship to the role of cannibalistic serial killer/guru-genius/pop-culture icon complete with zinging one-liners, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Many forget Hopkins was not carrying the weight of the picture. He was barely in the movie - maybe twelve minutes total during a running time of almost two hours (never mind the Best Actor Oscar). A little of his schtick went a long way.

The real backbone was Foster's Academy Award winning turn as FBI trainee, Clarice Starling. Intelligent, resourceful, ambitious, fighting hard to play in the big leagues, Silence mapped her journey as surely as Manhunter (the previous Thomas Harris adaptation) followed its own agent tracking serial killers, the unreliable protagonist Will Graham (William L. Petersen).

Foster didn't take the obvious acting choice to play Starling as a sensitive soul, even during the give-and-take where she trades her most painful memory from childhood for Lecter's clues to the spate of "Buffalo Bill" murders. She was a heroine you could really get behind. Foster was petite but tough, a woman who maps out her space. Hell, Demme needed someone who could go toe-to-toe with Anthony Hopkins, one of the most charismatic (or, perhaps, hammy) actors working today.

It's not just because of Foster's absence that I'm very reluctant to visit Ridley Scott's upcoming version of Hannibal.

But let's back up a little. Time for a quick history lesson.

Producer Dino Di Laurentiis bought the rights to the Dr. Lecter character after securing the rights to film Red Dragon (the first Lecter novel) in 1986. The title was changed to Manhunter to avoid confusion with the corresponding release of a Mickey Rourke thriller, Year of the Dragon. Obviously, it was a bad year for dragons, since both films bombed at the box office. Director Michael Mann created a sleek, disturbing thriller which was so intelligently constructed that it went right over audience's heads.

Disgusted by his meager profits, De Laurentiis practically gave away the rights to Silence of the Lambs when Orion put its package together. And Jonathan Demme and Jodie Foster rose to the occasion, working from playwright Ted Tally's superbly crafted script. The feature, despite some over-the-top baroque imagery and Lecter's punchline delivery ("I'm having an old friend for dinner!"), casts an eerie spell.

Howard Shore's pervasive score, once heard, is unforgettable. Audiences were immediately hooked on the revolting serial killers, the abrupt bursts of violence, and the crack team of professional FBI agents planning their moves. They respected Clarice Starling and were appropriately terrified of Hannibal Lecter, that mysterious psychopath in the cage.

Perhaps Lecter should have stayed there, in the shadows. By placing him front and center within Hannibal, it immediately makes him less terrifying. We don't want to know what sort of fancy Italian suits Hannibal Lecter is wearing. We don't want to see him walking down the street, rattling change in his pockets. Monsters are scary when we catch only a fleeting glimpse, allowed to imagine the rest. We never saw the photograph of what Lecter did to that unlucky nurse, since our minds fill in that horrific gap.

I can already see the t-shirt marketing campaign: "I'm giving very serious thought to eating your wife." With lines like this, who needs subtlety?

It's a really bad idea to get used to Lecter. We discovered him through Will Graham and Clarice Starling in the other films, interpreted him through their eyes. To look him full in the face, I suspect, will prove laughable. Of course, we know Anthony Hopkins doesn't care. He'll do anything if the price is right -- just look at Meet Joe Black or Instinct.

Frankly, the book was horrible. Thomas Harris sprinkled some gold dust over a steaming pile of horseshit with Hannibal, frustrating his fan base with a Buñuelian conclusion that had Starling and Lecter running off into the sunset together in a sexual tango. I'm not even going to get into the leering Ahab who wants to feed Lecter to his deadly pigs! Some claimed that Harris was showing the ultimate contempt for his fan base, placing Starling into territory she would never venture. Demme and Foster, perhaps turned off by this betrayal, passed on the movie.

Bring in Ridley Scott, fresh from the success of Gladiator. When in Rome, no? Scott came flanked with a legion of screenwriters to plug up the holes and change the ludicrous ending (anything would be an improvement).

While Hannibal is credited to writers Steven Zaillian and David Mamet, the philosophy behind too many cooks is unsettling. By trying to please everyone, scripts by committee often come off wishy-washy and vague. This team was already dealing with a book that had received a mixed-to-bad critical reception. I can only imagine what they came up with. Judging from the cringe-inducing trailer, not much.

The people behind Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs came on board because they really wanted to make those movies. They felt a passion for the material. Hannibal, as with most sequels, seems to be a purely financial decision. Di Laurentiis seized back his rights to the characters in the hopes of making some serious money off the franchise.

There's a considerable difference between artistic intention and money grubbing, but Di Laurentiis may be looking a gift horse in the mouth. Audiences are fickle. They may not be willing to have fond memories of Silence of the Lambs soiled by a cheap marketing ploy.

As for that fine actress Julianne Moore, who took the coveted role of Starling, she really should have known better. After all, who would want to follow in Foster's wake? The production team believes that Foster really didn't matter that much, but these guys weren't the ones to strike gold with Silence of the Lambs. Something to think about before you shell out your own hard earned cash.