ProSieben bites into Hannibal

Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 has picked up Hannibal from the fledgling US television arm of French film studio Gaumont.

Hannibal will be available on the ProSiebenSat.1 stations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark from 2013. It is the first overseas deal to be brokered by Gaumont International Television (GIT) for the 13×60′ NBC series.

Produced by GIT, the drama explores the relationship between Thomas Harris’s classic character Dr Hannibal Lector and FBI criminal profiler Will Graham. The series was written and exec-produced by Bryan Fuller (Heroes), and exec-produced by Martha De Laurentilis (Red Dragon).

“That such a major European broadcaster would pre-buy Hannibal certainly verifies to us that we are on the right track with the selection of projects we are producing and offering to the international broadcasters around the world,” said Erik Pack, head of international distribution and co-production for GIT.

GIT is based in Los Angeles and launched in September last year. Led by CEO Katie O’Connell, it recently confirmed an original series from Eli Roth called Hemlock Grove in the works for US VoD service Netflix.