NEW YORK -- Literary agent Mort Janklow was in his office here last week when the call came from a familiar voice: "It's finished, Mort," the caller said, "and it's going to be in your office tomorrow."
The caller was author Thomas Harris, and "it" was his 10-years-in-the-works sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs," the best seller that became 1991's Oscar-winning film starring Anthony Hopkins as the flesh-and-Chianti-loving Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as the FBI "profiler," Clarice Starling, who chases him.Janklow said the 600-page manuscript, titled "Hannibal," arrived by FedEx the next day, and he immediately plunged in for a 24-hour read, calling Harris once with a progress report before finishing it at home at 2 a.m.
"I told him it was a brilliant, brilliant achievement and worth waiting for . . . the reason I was in this business," said the agent, whose Madison Avenue firm, Janklow & Nesbit Associates, also represents the likes of Tom Wolfe and Michael Crichton.
The sudden appearance of "Hannibal" has reverberated a continent away in Hollywood.
What fascinates the movie industry is that not only could film rights to "Hannibal" soar to record levels, it also holds the promise of reuniting Hopkins, Foster and director Jonathan Demme -- who each won Academy Awards for their work in "The Silence of the Lambs."
"I think it is everybody's intention" to make the sequel, said Bob Bookman of Creative Artists Agency, who will negotiate Harris' film rights, and who also is co-agent for Demme.
Hopkins is said to be seriously entertaining the idea of reprising his role as "Hannibal the Cannibal," the soft-spoken psychiatrist with an appetite for human organs.
Foster, who is currently in the Far East filming "Anna and the King," also has expressed a desire in years past to play Starling in a sequel.
But the cost of making a sequel would be steep.
To begin with, sources say, the film rights to Harris' book could top the $8 million price reportedly paid by Disney's Touchstone Pictures in 1996 for Crichton's book "Airframe," or the nearly $8 million paid by Warner Bros. for John Grisham's "The Runaway Jury."
Sources say Foster and Hopkins could each command $15 million to reprise their roles, while Demme's directing fee could range between $5 million and $10 million. And that doesn't include the fee for screenwriter Ted Tally or the producers.
"You're talking about a movie that could easily cost $100 million to make," said a source close to the parties, who noted that "The Silence of the Lambs" cost only $22 million.