Sony reworking Lisbeth Salander series; Alicia Vikander eyed for lead role

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO series is getting a bit of a facelift over at Sony with the studio moving ahead with plans to rework the franchise for a fresh start.

THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB, the fourth book in the novel series and the first not to be written by the late Stieg Larsson, will serve as the next adaptation with BURNT’s Steven Knight in talks with Sony to handle the page-to-screen transition. From there, the idea is to then move ahead in sequence, with THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE following, most likely working off the Steve Zaillian script they paid seven figures for several years ago.

Neither Rooney Mara nor Daniel Craig would be reprising their roles as Lisbeth Salander or Mikael Blomqvist respectively, and David Fincher won’t be anywhere near this picture either. Instead the studio would be looking to recast the primary roles, with Alicia Vikander reportedly one of the actresses being eyed and currently sitting very high on their wish list. Moving on from those connections to THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO would allow them a fresh start with the characters as well as the series as it continues forward and not attach them to the Fincher adaptation which, while well-received, was expensive and not exactly remembered all that vividly.

Essentially THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO will be left in the dust, and Sony will be retooling on the fly in order to dive into the remaining three books of the Millennium series. It makes sense for them, if they really want to give this property a shot at success. They weren’t going to move forward granting Daniel Craig a sizable raise or with another bloated budget. This seems to be their best course of action. Now, will it work? We’ll have to wait and see.