Stieg Larsson’s Millenium novels became an worldwide phenomenon in the mid-2000s, with the three books selling in excess of 80 million copies and being translated into 50 languages. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before the series was adapted for live-action, but Swedish cinema did it much better than Hollywood.
2009’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo turned Noomi Rapace into an international star, winning strong reviews and doing big business at the box office. The entire trilogy was released within the space of nine months, ultimately bringing in $210 million from theaters.
The inevitable Stateside remake hailed from no less a talent than David Fincher, but it didn’t end up performing well enough to justify a sequel in the eyes of the studio, who instead opted to reboot the property after one film and bring in an entirely new team to craft The Girl in the Spider’s Web.
Did we need a fresh cast and crew picking up where Fincher left off to deliver a strange hybrid of sequel and reboot? Probably not, a sentiment that was definitely shared by critics and audiences after The Girl in the Spider’s Web wound up with a 39% score on Rotten Tomatoes, while failing to even recoup the $43 million budget when it released in November 2018.
However, the largely ineffective crime thriller has rebounded on Netflix after managing to crack the platform’s Top 10 most-watched list, as per FlixPatrol, so subscribers have clearly deemed it worthy of their time.
Published: Nov 3, 2021 05:43 am