After the David Fincher-directed Steig Larsson adaptation THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO didn't perform as well at the box office as they were hoping, Sony has been hesitant to move forward with adaptations of the next two books in Larsson's trilogy, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST. Recently the studio decided that the way forward is to hold off on the Larsson stories and instead make a film based on the fourth book in the Lisbeth Salander series, THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB, which was written by David Lagercrantz and just published in 2015.
While a script for THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, written by DRAGON TATTO screenwriter Steven Zaillian, waits for its day to be filmed, Steven Knight has written an adaptation of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB, and even though this will be a sort of revival of the franchise after a five year wait, Knight has told Collider that his script is a sequel to Fincher's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO:
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.
… But, it was great fun to do because of the central character. With The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the girl is really the central character. She’s the whole thing. It’s not really Blomkvist.”
A couple weeks ago, we heard that EVIL DEAD 2013 / DON'T BREATHE director Fede Alvarez is the filmmaker Sony wants at the helm of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB, and Alvarez and his producing/writing partner Rodo Sayagues have confirmed to ComingSoon that they will be making the movie and it will be Alvarez's next project. The pair are now "currently looking at ways to make SPIDER'S WEB something uniquely theirs."
While they're doing this, I continue to hold on to hope that Rooney Mara will be brought back to reprise the role of Lisbeth Salander.
Lagercrantz's novel has the following synopsis:
A genius hacker who has always been an outsider. A journalist with a penchant for danger. She is Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo. He is Mikael Blomkvist, crusading editor of Millennium. One night, Blomkvist receives a call from a source who claims to have been given information vital to the United States by a young female hacker. Blomkvist, always on the lookout for a story, reaches out to Salander for help. She, as usual, has plans of her own. Together they are drawn into a ruthless underworld of spies, cybercriminals, and government operatives—some willing to kill to protect their secrets.
THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB isn't the only sequel Alvarez is planning to make. He also told ComingSoon that he intends to make a sequel to his film DON'T BREATHE, which is being released on home video on November 29th. The DON'T BREATHE follow-up hasn't yet received a green light, but Alvarez intends to direct it and to have Stephen Lang return as the creepy Blind Man.
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