The Morbidity of the Soul

Genre: Suspense/Horror/Sequel.

Studio: Unknown.
Production Company: Unknown.

Project Phase: Development Hell.

Who's In It: Jodie Foster (Clarice Starling) and Anthony Hopkins (Dr. Hannibal Lecter) have both expressed interest in returning to play their characters again, but Hopkins recently said he no longer wishes to act. Character actor Lewis Abernathy has been heard saying there's a small role written for him in the film.
Who's Making It: Jonathan Demme (Director) is associated with the project but not officially under any sort of contract to direct the film; Based on the upcoming novel The Morbidity of the Soul by Thomas Harris.

Premise: Clarice Starling is after yet another serial killer, this one imitating the crimes of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. But Clarice is about to receive help from a most unexpected ally...

Release Date: 2000 (extremely tentative, depending upon the book's release and Hopkins reluctance).

Comments: The rumors about this project began about five minutes after its predecessor hit theaters. With The Silence of the Lambs capturing the Big Five at the Oscars and Hollywood's hunger for sequels, it's amazing this has been talked about for so long and not yet made reality. Credit it to Harris' tenacity for taking his time at writing the follow-up.

Rumors: Unknown.

Scoop Feedback:

<[Page draft submitted by 'Widgett', who wants to arrive at his next high school reunion on a handcart a la Dr. L.]

December 1, 1998... The main thing this project is waiting for is Harris to finish the book. Then we get rounds and rounds of screenwriters--you know the drill, although Ted Tally's name (the screenwriter for Lambs) has been mentioned as scribe numero uno. As for this new serial killer, rumors point to Pietro Pacciani, "The Monster of Florence." An actual person, he was responsible for the deaths of several courting couples in Italy during the 1950's. It's mentioned once or twice that the film may actually take place in Italy.

Expect Hopkins to rejoin the fun, for the cool price of $24 million, which will buy more fava beans than there are people on the planet who've actually seen an honest-to-God fava bean, let me tell you. Foster has nothing to complain about either, although her paycheck's a little smaller: $19.2 million, reportedly. She's asked that special arrangements be made so that her child can accompany her for filming. [Originally appeared in Cinematter, Empire, InSync, Cinescape Online; reported by Widgett, with some help from anonymous.]

December 7, 1998... Every once-in-a-while we receive a scoop that's just plain cool. We're not talking about what we'd consider a major scoop, like a picture of Darth Maul chopping the head off of a certain character in Star Wars One six months before it opens to wide release. No, these scoops are usually a lot more 'quiet' in the information the informant wishes to share. The scooper shares a small, almost inconsequential nugget of knowledge they've come across that pertains to a project in development...and we're able to take a look at the film from a different angle. A new perspective is revealed about a project that heretofore remained pretty much in the shadows.

We say that this scoop should be branded as such. "Back in September, a heavyset fellow with red hair came to my film class at the University of North Texas to talk to us. He apparently graduated about a decade or more ago, and went on to do his grad work at USC. I can't for the life of me remember his name, but he showed us a clip of his limited acting experience. I can't name the character, because I never saw Titanic, but the clip we saw was of him on the deck of a big ship calling the old woman a liar. He was ranting about how she was full of shit, or something like that, then she lands in a helicopter and hands him a fishbowl. At least, I think that's how it goes...

"Anyhow, he also mentioned he wrote one of the drafts (either the first or the last) of True Lies, and he's real good friends with James Cameron. I hope you can find the name of the guy I'm talking about, sorry I couldn't provide it.

"Now, he isn't an actor, but his friends write parts with him in mind for them sometimes, which is why he did the Titanic part. When asked what he was going to be doing in the future, he said that the gentleman writing the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs had written a part for him (the UNT speaker) as a cop who ends up as a meal for Hannibal Lecter.

"So, what does this matter? I suppose it doesn't, really, but now (if you can figure out his name) you've got someone else to add to the cast list, and we know (not that it wasn't expected) that Lecter chows down on at least one cop. Hope you can do something with this. I think I can give you 'permission' to credit me with this monster scoop if you use it. =] " [And that would be one John 'The Tasty Greek' Hansen who was responsible for sending us this morsel.]

So we take that email, which has got to be as remote as finding a Furby on Christmas Eve, and do some digging. We remember seeing the red-haired heavyset fellow in the opening scenes of Titanic...so who is the actor our scooper is talking about?

Lewis Abernathy is his name. He played Lewis Bodine in Titanic, the robotic-vehicle operator who sat alongside Bill Paxton's character when they explored the shipwreck. Abernathy is credited with just one story credit in the IMDb, for Deep Star Six. Eww.

So you put it all together and it seems that Mr. Abernathy may be our first semi-confirmed supporting actor in this picture. Sure, it isn't reason enough to stop the presses but it does show you that a small, select group of people out there do know a lot more about this picture's story than the rest of us have learned so far. If the material exists, then we have a chance to aquire it, right? That's our plan, Dr. Lecter -- now pass those fava beans before they get cold.

December 14, 1998... Things don't look good for us seeing ol' Hannibal Lecter again when the star starts telling the press he "regrets" his years spent acting. And it doesn't look like he's joking around or playing on some ulterior motive to get more money to reprise Lecter again. Hopkins said things like ""I want to do something else with my life. I don't want to keep hanging around doing stupid things like acting," and "It was a complete waste of time." That sounds pretty concrete to us.

So why has Hopkins suddenly decided that his entire professional career, which as earned him a knighthood and an Academy Award is a complete and utter waste of time? Apparently acting has left him severly depressed. ""My joke has always been, 'It sure beats working for a living' but the joke has caught up with me now," Hopkins told the News of the World tabloid Sunday. [Reported by Bill Throckmorton and Jonathan; originally appeared in News of the World.]

January 7, 1998... We received some anonymous info about this project. And we're not selfish, so we'll share. The scoopers reports that in a British newspaper he saw word of Hopkins' and Foster's involvements, and also the fact that Demme has signed on officially. In addition, "...Harris apparently got the contract to write the sequel shortly before SOTL went to the screen, but has been holding out recently. He is so secretive about the script that he won't even talk about it to his family or agent, much less his editors, until he has finished polishing it. Current reports say that he is at the end of the polishing stage. The second that the publishers have a copy, they will send copies to the appointed screenwriters (they've already been chosen) as well as Jonathan Demme. Also, the current underground info seems to indicate that Harris was last doing research into cases where serial killers teamed up together. This seems to be the probable plot (reported from several different sources to confirm) and, of course, allows Demme to cast a second person as a serial killer." [Thanks to a very patient and understanding anonymous scooper.]

But here's the $60K question -- no make that $24 million -- word has it that Hopkins will retire following completion of his work on Titus. Since I know we're all depressed here about it, let's get down to it: what does this mean to this project? Are we screwed out of Lecter's return? Can anyone tell us what is up with that, please?

Here's someone with a bit of speculation. If Hopkins does bow out, would the producers return to the original Lecter (named Lecktor for some odd reason), played by Brian Cox in the 1986 film Manhunter? This was the film they made out of Lector's first book, Red Dragon. The scooper also anonymously provides us with more plot ideas: "Also, about the films storyline (and this might more or less suggest Cox's involvement too), This was mentioned by Harris in an interview back in 1992. It seems Harris wanted to take the Will Graham character from Red Dragon and the Clarice Starling character from Silence and have them BOTH looking for Lecter. I realize that the storyline has probably changed drastically since then but if the Will Graham character does appear then the producers might get William Petersen [who played Graham in Manhunter -ed.] and if they get Petersen than they might get Cox." Interesting theory. [Thunk up by 'anonymous']

And here's some more speculation, just for the hell of it. It's good quality speculation, though. We are told that in Manhunter the process of catching Lecter drove the aforementioned Agent Graham to insanity. This scoopers theorizes, "Anyway, wouldn't it be interested if the killer mimicking Lecter's spree was in fact Petersen's FBI agent, once again driven mad, perhaps by the knowledge that Lecter was loose. This would tie the two films together and be very interesting, as Petersen would know most of the FBI protocol that Starling would use to apprehend him. Just speculation." Yeah, but it's speculation with nine essential vitamins and iron. [Thanks to 'wthrockmorton' for his thoughts.]



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