Taste of success

The return of Hannibal Lecter to the big screen is already setting records: in Britain, Hannibal took £6m over the weekend, the biggest three-day box office ever; and in the United States, where it made $58m (£39m) in its first three days, it has now passed $100m. Why this movie, now, particularly as it is but a sequel that has had relatively poor reviews compared to the original Silence of the Lambs?

The return of Hannibal Lecter to the big screen is already setting records: in Britain, Hannibal took £6m over the weekend, the biggest three-day box office ever; and in the United States, where it made $58m (£39m) in its first three days, it has now passed $100m. Why this movie, now, particularly as it is but a sequel that has had relatively poor reviews compared to the original Silence of the Lambs?

The answer, of course, is in that single- word title: "Hannibal" is not a movie. It's not even a phenomenon. It's a brand. Forget the fact that, with rare exceptions such as Godfather II and III, sequels rarely live up to the creative original they slavishly imitate. In our modern marketing economy, nothing penetrates the white noise of the competing commercial messages that assail us from billboards, television and newspapers so much as the elusive charm of the familiar.

Once, you had to build a better mousetrap to get the world to beat a path to your door. Now, you would do better to sell a familiar design under a catchy name. Hannibal/cannibal - as long as the appetite is there, and Anthony Hopkins remains willing to satisfy it, the queues will be forming at the cinema.