The Girl in the Spider’s Web is sort of a follow up to David Fincher’s acclaimed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo released in 2011. Dragon Tattoo was in itself the second adaptation of Stieg Larrson’s novel, the other being the the Swedish film of the same name. Fincher’s film say Rooney Mara taking on the role as hacker Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist, the former of which an earned an Oscar nomination for her role. In regards to Spider’s Web, the film will be directed by Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe) with both Salander and Blomkvist being played by Claire Foy and Sverrir Gudnason respectively this time around.
The whole The Girl series (yes, that’s what I’m going to call it) is a strange process. Based off the Millennium series by Larrson which saw the Spider’s Web (novel) being written by David Lagercrantz after Larrson’s death of a heart attack in 2004. Dragon Tattoo was set to be the first of Larrson’s film adaptations but Sony decided to just screw the other books and go with the one that Larrson didn’t pen. The characters still remain in the novel and film but one would have assumed that Mara and Craig would have returned to reprise their roles. That’s not the case of course but it really is a wonder as to why they decided to recast especially since Mara and Craig have some strong star power now.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Alvarez spoke on the matter and revealed that there was a lot of debate in the studio in regards to bringing the old cast back. However, he revealed that he himself wanted a cast of his own.
“I preferred to have my own cast. As a director, I just didn’t like the idea of taking someone else’s cast. As much as I admired Fincher as a filmmaker I think Rooney Mara is Fincher’s Lisbeth, right? And I wanted to find my own.”
It is understandable why Alvarez wanted to go this route as he probably didn’t want it to be compared to Fincher’s film too much. Or he just wanted to make a thing of his own but it’s going to be a little weird for some audiences.
However, having Mara and Craig back does seem like a very smart thing to do from a business standpoint since they’ve come a long way in Hollywood since 2011 and it’s safe to say that they are household names. Claire Foy from The Crown is the most bankable star in the film so Crown fans may be lining up for that, not to mention, she’s a great actress. Dragon Tattoo was a great thriller with great performances so….. yeah, no pressure to provide a great follow up.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
