At long last, Sony is ready to push ahead with a follow-up to David Fincher’s English-language version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but neither Daniel Craig nor Lisbeth Salander herself, Rooney Mara, will be involved.
The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop on the soft reboot, revealing the studio is primed to forgo both The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest in order to adapt the little-known fourth entry into Stieg Larsson’s beloved Millennium series, The Girl in the Spider’s Web. As the first installment not to be penned by the late, great Swedish journalist-cum-writer, it’s certainly an interesting approach for Sony to take, and sources close to the nascent project have revealed that the studio has its crosshairs placed on Burnt director Steven Knight to take the reins.
Published back in September, David Lagercrantz’s thriller once again revolves around the characters of Lisbeth Salander and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist who become embroiled in a complex, seemingly never-ending network of corruption, lies and deceit.
With credits on Locke, World War Z and Dirty Pretty Things to his name, Knight is a fine choice to helm Sony’s overhaul of the thriller series, particularly now that Fincher has no plans to return in the director’s chair. It’s a similar story for Daniel Craig, who reportedly demanded a pay rise in the wake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but considering that the US version of Larsson’s novel only managed to pull in $233 million, such a boost was beyond the studio’s financial reach.
That doesn’t mean that its immediate sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire is dead in the Water. As THR notes, Sony forked out a sizeable sum for Steven Zaillian’s script treatment, and the plan now is for The Girl in the Spider’s Web to seed the arrival of a bona fide sequel. The question remains, though: who will supplant Craig and Mara in the nominal roles?