For nearly a decade, Bryan Fuller has been one of television’s most distinct and celebrated auteurs, creating visually stunning worlds in shows like Pushing Daisies and American Gods. Yet his masterpiece remains Hannibal, a brutal reimagining of the iconic killer that was defined by its artistic horror and a mesmerizing central performance. The actor behind that performance, Mads Mikkelsen, has since built an incredible career playing compelling villains and complex heroes in major franchises like the MCU, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones. Now, for his long-awaited feature film debut, Fuller is stepping away from television to create a new breed of monster movie, and he is bringing his most iconic collaborator along for a wild and terrifying ride.
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The first official trailer for Bryan Fuller’s directorial debut, Dust Bunny, has finally arrived, officially reuniting the creator with his Hannibal star Mads Mikkelsen. The footage introduces a ten-year-old girl named Aurora (Sophie Sloan) who believes a monster under her bed has killed her family. To solve her problem, she hires her mysterious neighbor, an enigmatic hitman played by Mikkelsen, to hunt and kill the creature for her. Mikkelsen’s killer takes the job because he believes the monsters are actually assassins sent to take him down, and the girl’s family got caught in the crossfire. What follows is a descent into a colorful world of stylized violence, as Mikkelsen must protect the girl from a bizarre lineup of quirky assassins while confronting the possibility that some monsters are real.
The trailer wastes no time showcasing the movie’s action-heavy tone, which appears heavily inspired by the hyper-real choreography of the John Wick franchise. This inspiration is no coincidence, as Dust Bunny is co-produced by Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee, the team behind the Keanu Reeves-led assassin saga. The footage offers glimpses of surreal combat, including a moment where a character played by Sigourney Weaver appears to use a high-heeled shoe as a firearm, signaling that the film has no intention of being grounded in reality. Crucially, the trailer also maintains a clever ambiguity about the monster itself, leaving audiences to wonder whether the threat is supernatural or a manifestation of the violent human world surrounding the young girl.
The Enduring Legacy of Hannibal
Years after its final episode aired in 2015, Fuller’s Hannibal maintains a fiercely devoted fanbase and a powerful cultural footprint that few network shows ever achieve. The series distinguished itself from all previous adaptations of Thomas Harris’s novels by refusing to be a simple crime procedural. Instead, Fuller crafted a deeply psychological and philosophical arthouse horror show, presenting gruesome murders as elaborate artistic tableaus and framing Hannibal’s culinary preparations with the sensual elegance of a cooking show. This blend of the beautiful and the brutal created a hypnotic atmosphere that became the show’s signature.
The core of Hannibal’s lasting appeal, however, lies in its radical reinterpretation of the relationship between Dr. Hannibal Lecter and FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). The series transformed their dynamic from a simple cat-and-mouse game into a tragic romance. As a result, Hannibal was a slow-burning exploration of mutual obsession, manipulation, and genuine emotional connection between two brilliant but damaged minds. It will be interesting to see how Fuller channels his creative energy into a horror movie, but Dust Bunny‘s trailer is already looking great.
Dust Bunny is scheduled to be released in theaters on December 5, 2025.
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