Fans will be delighted to learn that NBC has renewed "Hannibal," a psychological thriller-horror series, for a third season. While the network has not made any official announcement regarding the premiere date of Season 3, it is expected that the show will either be released late this year or in early 2015.

Several fans were concerned about the fate of the series as ratings have been dropping in Season 2. In fact, the show's ratings in Season 2 had been much lower than that in Season 1. Still, despite the drop and the cancellation rumors, the network has renewed for another season.

The rating were already low for Season 1, but according to reports the ratings for Season 2 had dropped even more. This makes "Hannibal" one of the lowest-rated series on NBC.

There is speculation that NBC might have renewed "Hannibal" for another season owing to its agreement with the studio. According to rumors, as per the agreement, each episode of the show costs the network just $500,000, which is much less than majority of the dramas currently running on the network.

Previously, talking to Digital Spy, Bryan Fuller, who developed "Hannibal," said that he was sure that the show would be renewed for another season. He said, "I hear very positive things. All of the creative at NBC are so supportive of the show and want it back, and the schedules and salespeople are like, 'It's a new show, get rid of it'. We are banking on the creative people winning out over the salespeople."

Fuller further said, "The ratings are not anything to jump up and down about, but the critical acclaim is great, and we're sort of a prestige project for the network, so we're hoping that's enough, like it was last year. There have been indications that it will be."

In the interview, Fuller said, "Season 3 is going to be a lot of fun because it's going to be taking a lot of disparate elements from the novel Hannibal Rising and the novel Hannibal and mashing them up together as part of the thrust of the season. It's going to be fun to bastardize two novels into one sort of Frankenstein season. I will brace everybody right now: We're significantly changing the Hannibal origin story from Hannibal Rising....The books won't necessarily be in sequential order. We'll be hitting elements of each of them except Silence of the Lambs in the next season. My hope is that not only do we have a completely different Hannibal Lecter story in Season 3, but we will meet some of those great characters like Francis Dolarhyde and Lady Murasaki and weave them into the world in a unique way."

Fuller teased, " The basic structure revolving around the FBI will be less prominent in Season 3--at least for the first half of the season...Laurence [Fishburne] is also a very busy man. One of the wonders of this season is: Will Alana survives and will Jack Crawford survive? Will Abigail Hobbs survive? Those are things that are going to be revealed very slowly at the beginning of Season 3."