Fede Alvarez Talks The Girl in the Spider’s Web Recasting

Director Fede Alvarez has opened up about the The Girl in the Spider’s Web recasting of The Crown star Claire Foy as Lisbeth Salander. The heroine of the Millennium novels was last seen on the big screen in 2011 and was portrayed by Rooney Mara in David Fincher’s adaptation of book one, The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo. According to Entertainment Weekly, Alvarez wanted to use his own cast.

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“There was a lot of debate — but not with me — mostly debate among the studio, if they [were] taking that route or not,” Alvarez told EW., “Eventually, I think it was me coming in, saying, 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.”

Joining Foy in the film are Sverrir Gudnason as Mikael Blomkvist, Lakeith Stanfield as Ed Needham and Stephen Merchant as Frans Balder. Also in the cast are Sylvia Hoeks, Claes Bang, Christopher Convery, Synnøve Macody Lund, and Vicky Krieps.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web will be the first in the best-selling series to be produced into an English-language film in its initial adaptation. The previous books in the series have been adapted into Swedish-language films, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a remake of the Swedish film. It became a global hit for Columbia Pictures, taking in over $230 million worldwide.

The studio continues its development of the next book in the Millennium series, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye. Sony’s Columbia Pictures retains the rights to all future Millennium Series books. Their first Millennium adaptation, 2011’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, was directed by David Fincher and starred Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, grossing $232 million at the worldwide box office.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web will be released by Sony Pictures on October 19, 2018.