British actor and star of The Hobbit Richard Armitage will join the cast of the psychological thriller TV series Hannibal in its upcoming third season.

Armitage, who played Thorin Oakenshield in the Peter Jackson movies, will appear in at least six episodes of the series. He will play a serial killer named Francic Dolarhyde AKA The Tooth Fairy, who originally appeared in the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon.

He is described as 'hulking' and his twist is that he enjoys targeting entire households for slaughter. Oh. Lovely.

Let's hope he doesn't eat them too....

Hannibal returns to Sky Living later in the year.