Bryan Fuller, who brought author Thomas Harris’s iconic character Hannibal Lecter to the small screen with the Hannibal television series, has taken to social media to share the sad news that the show’s executive producer Martha De Laurentiis has passed away at the age of 67, reportedly after “a long battle with cancer”.
Born Martha Schumacher in 1954, De Laurentiis grew up in Piqua, Ohio and was crowned Ohio’s Junior Miss in 1972, going on to attend Ball State University and work as a model before getting into the film industry. Her earliest jobs were as an assistant on The Warriors and Wolfen, then she was a production auditor on Amityville II: The Possession and a production accountant on Amityville 3-D. In 1980, she joined legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis’s company De Laurentiis Entertainment Group as an assistant production accountant and gradually worked her way up to becoming the company’s chairman. She also married Dino De Laurentiis in 1990.
Under the name Martha Schumacher, De Laurentiis earned her first producing credit (associate producer) on the 1984 Stephen King adaptation Firestarter. She went on to produce Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye, Silver Bullet, and Maximum Overdrive (which he directed himself). She’ll be credited as executive producer on Blumhouse’s Firestarter remake, which is expected to be released sometime in 2022.
De Laurentiis also produced the Thomas Harris film adaptations Hannibal, Red Dragon, and Hannibal Rising, before taking the Hannibal concept to TV.
In addition to her King and Harris projects, De Laurentiis produced such films as King Kong Lives, Unforgettable, Breakdown, and U-571. In 2018, she was executive producer on the Mads Mikkelsen film Arctic.
De Laurentiis brought us some very cool genre films during her decades as a producer, and was hoping to continue her collaboration with Fuller on a revival of the Hannibal TV show. If we ever see Hannibal again, it’s sad to know she won’t be involved.
De Laurentiis was preceded in death by her husband Dino, who passed away in 2010. She is survived by their two daughters, Carolyna and Dina.
Our sincere condolences go out to Martha De Laurentiis’s family, friends, and fans.
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