Five years ago, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was supposed to be the next big literary adaptation on the block. With a hot best-selling series of novels to draw from, and stars like Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in the leads, Sony was hoping director David Fincher's version of the Swedish hit would set the world on fire, thus leading to an easy greenlight for the sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire. Judging how we've just gotten word that the series may be resurrected, with Don't Breathe director Fede Alvarez in talks for the directing position, it seems like the sequel is less than a fire and more of an ember, waiting to catch.
Variety ran the exclusive that named Alvarez as the candidate for the job, although those of you hoping the second entry in Stieg Larson's Millennium series would be hitting the big screen are going to be somewhat disappointed. Apparently, much like Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series before it, Sony is skipping over two of the books in the series and adapting the latest book, The Girl in the Spider's Web. Written by David Lagercrantz, the book involves Mikael Blomqvist's reporting of a brilliant computer scientist who's under threat... by an organization Lisbeth Salander is working with in order to find someone from her past.
This news couldn't have come at a more appropriate time, as Rooney Mara had recently gone on record as stating that she had given up hope on ever performing as Lisbeth Salander again. While she's certainly open to reprising her role from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, there's no word on whether Sony will be offering her the role again, or if they'll be looking to start with a fresh cast in the roles of both the titular girl and her compatriot, Mikael. Though if we were to place a bet on whether Mara, or her fellow Dragon co-star Daniel Craig would be the first to return, then our money's on Mara.
As far as series continuity is concerned, the original plan to produce The Girl Who Played With Fire had the film departing severely from the version of events that the novel depicted. With that project now probably scrapped, or at least put on hold in favor of The Girl in the Spider's Web, the focus on the here and now is clearly the focus of Sony's efforts to resurrect the Millennium series of films. Nowhere is that more present than in the possible hiring of Fede Alvarez, who delivered the studio a sleeper horror hit with August's Don't Breathe.
Seeing as his directing chops show the ability to handle both tension and the horror of humanity's hidden evils, Alvarez is a pretty fitting hire to direct The Girl in the Spider's Web. Though everyone said the same thing about David Fincher when he was hired to kick off the series with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and we all remember how well that worked out. We'll see if The Girl in the Spider's Web takes off faster than The Girl Who Played With Fire ever did, as we'll be keeping our ears open for updates and reporting back to you as soon as the develop.
