Back in November of last year, Sony announced that it was looking to relaunch the Millennium franchise with an adaptation of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the fourth book in the series, written by David Lagercrantz.
The initial report said that the movie would reboot the series, following the mediocre box office returns for David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and that Fincher and stars Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig were not expected to return.
While there’s been no word on casting yet (although Alicia Vikander was linked to the role of Lisbeth Salander), we do know that Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe) is in talks to direct, while Steven Knight (Allied) is penning the script. And according to Knight, it’s being envisioned as a Dragon Tattoo sequel, rather than a reboot:
“With The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the girl is really the central character,” Knight tells Collider. “She’s the whole thing. It’s not really Blomkvist. It can’t be anything other than a sequel, but a couple of books have been skipped, so it is different, in that sense. It’s really taking a very strong central character and thinking, how do you execute this? It’s quite different.”
So, does that mean we could see the return of Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander? In the wake of the original announcement, Mara said that “as far as I know I’m doing it until someone tells me otherwise”, so it’s certainly a possibility and would make sense if Sony is intending it as a sequel to Dragon Tattoo.
Originally published November 18, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
