We’re not here to say that the movie business is running short on ideas, but the mere existence of Fede Álvarez’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web is a solid indicator that the well often runs a whole lot drier than it needs to.
Noomi Rapace became an international star after headlining The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest in the 2009 trilogy that won strong reviews from critics and earned a combined total of $215 million at the box office, not a bad return at all for a trio of Swedish literary adaptations.
Along came David Fincher two years later with an acclaimed remake that earned more than the original trilogy combined, and found plenty of awards season recognition, but not enough to justify a sequel or two. Not one to let a recognizable property lay idle, of course, The Girl in the Spider’s Web trundled along in late 2018 – only to bomb on both fronts.
As well as failing to recoup its $43 million at the box office, a Rotten Tomatoes score of 38 makes it the worst-received of any of the five films featuring Lisbeth Salander. Looking at the muted reception, it’s almost as if audiences weren’t keen on the idea of rebooting a remake that had already failed to launch the trilogy from which it was initially adapted. Who’d have thought?
Streaming subscribers tend to let bygones be bygones, though, with The Girl in the Spider’s Web currently leaving behind a trail of destruction on the HBO Max charts, per FlixPatrol. Hopefully we don’t need to meet Lisbeth again, because we’ve been there, done that, and got way too many t-shirts.
