American remakes of movies usually lead to well-deserved eye rolls, but David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was downright excellent, earning star Rooney Mara a well-deserved best actress nod at the Oscars. Daniel Craig also impressed in this take on Stieg Larsson’s best-selling novels, but the planned sequels have unfortunately come to nothing.
Well, a reboot of sorts is now on the way with Locke director Steven Knight in talks to write the script not of The Girl Who Played With Fire, but The Girl in the Spider’s Web instead.
That’s the fourth book in the popular Dragon Tattoo series, but it was not written by Larsson.
Even so, it still became a best-seller back in September, and the David Lagercrantz penned novel follows superhacker Salander and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist as they find themselves at the center of a tangled web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt governments.
Don’t expect to see either Craig or Mara reprise their Dragon Tattoo roles however as Sony are planning to relaunch the franchise with this movie, so Fincher isn’t set to be involved either. Dragon Tattoo producer Scott Rudin is returning to produce alongside Amy Pascal.
A big part of the reason why The Girl Who Played With Fire isn’t moving ahead may come down to the fact that Dragon Tattoo earned $233 million on a $90 million budget. That was too expensive for an R-Rated movie, and Craig’s request for a pay rise is a big part of why the studio is now forging ahead without the original stars and with a brand new director.
UPDATE: The Wrap reveals that Ex Machina and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s Alicia Vikander is in early negotiations to take over the role of Lisbeth Salander from Rooney Mara.
We actually caught up with Steve Knight last week (talk about bad timing, eh?). Check out what he had to say below along with our recent interview with actress Alicia Vikander.
