NBC is currently busy with its serial-killing Hannibal series, and it now emerges that there's another, rival Thomas Harris series in the works. MGM is in the early stages of producing Clarice for the Lifetime channel: a new show based around Hannibal Lecter's nemesis / love interest Clarice Starling.
Clarice is, of course, the character played by Jodie Foster in The Silence Of The Lambs, and by Julianne Moore in Hannibal. Her career in law enforcement stems from her father's murder, and she grew up in an orphanage, having run away from her uncle's farm, after witnessing the slaughter that gives Silence its title.
Sadly, rather than picking up Clarice as we left her at the end of Hannibal (which would have been mad and interesting), the intention here seems to be to place Clarice between her existing two novels and films. The show will follow the adventures of the young Clarice, just out of the FBI academy. She was still a student in Silence, you'll recall, so she will have met Lecter by the time of the series. The different networks make Hannibal crossovers unlikely though.
Clarice is part of a shake-up at Lifetime that's also led to the Jennifer Love Hewitt series The Client List. It's early days yet on this FBI show, so there's no word of lead actresses or writers or show-runners, but we guess Lifetime will be aiming at the next pilot season.
NBC's **Hannibal meanwhile, centred on Lecter's relationship with Red Dragon / Manhunter's Will Graham, is executive produced by Pushing Daisies' Bryan Fuller, and will premiere in the autumn.