Lisabeth Salander, the righter of wrongs and protector of women, is back on the big screen this fall in “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” but this time with some big changes to shake things up.
READ MORE: ‘The Girl In The Spider’s Web’ Trailer: Claire Foy Has The Dragon Tattoo
While the trailer promises a movie as thrilling and gritty as its predecessor, “The Girl with the Dragon’s Tattoo,” Fede Àlvarez (“Don’t Breathe,” “Evil Dead”) is making sure he’s staking his claim in this reboot/sequel. After David Fincher (“Gone Girl,” “The Social Network”) vacated the director’s chair and Sony gave the green light, Àlvarez rose to the challenge and got busy putting together an entirely new cast.
“There was a lot of debate — but not with me — mostly debate among the studio, if they [were] taking that route or not,” Àlvarez said. “Eventually, I think it was me coming in, saying, I preferred to have my own cast. As a director, I just didn’t like the idea of taking someone else’s cast. As much as I admired Fincher as a filmmaker I think Rooney Mara is Fincher’s Lisbeth, right? And I wanted to find my own.”
Putting it like that, Àlvarez makes it seem so obvious. Instead of Rooney Mara, Claire Foy (“The Crown”) will be playing Lisabeth Salander and Sverrir Gudnason will be filling Daniel Craig’s (incredibly large) shoes as journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Fincher is not gone entirely though; he’s sticking on as executive producer, and we’re looking forward to seeing how he works with his successor.
Yet the musical chairs that came with getting the movie together is oddly appropriate for ‘Spider’s Web.’ The book of the same name by David Lagercrantz debuted with controversy as the fourth book in the Millennium crime-thriller series written by Stieg Larsson. Yup, you read that right; after the posthumous publication and subsequent popularity of Larsson’s three original books, Lagercrantz was brought on to finish the tale, adding his own spin to the characters just as, it seems, Àlvarez is doing now.
We, at least, are waiting at the edge of our movie theater seats, even placing this Swedish drama on our top 100 most anticipated films of 2018 list. “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” will be in theaters November 9.