Lisbeth Salander Returns to the Big Screen; Will Alicia Vikander Play Her?

The Sony plan on “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” “Millennium” series gets stranger and stranger. In order to extricate themselves from the deals on the first series—with Daniel Craig reportedly demanding too much money for a scaled-back sequel, and Rooney Mara, who was Oscar-nommed for playing hacker Lisbeth Salander, reluctant to return without mentor David Fincher in the director’s chair—the studio is proceeding with a movie version of the new, fourth installment in the series, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” the one not written by Stieg Larrson, reports THR.

After Fincher crafted a too-costly R-rated $90-million movie that grossed just  $233 million worldwide in 2011, Sony sat on a costly draft of the sequel, “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” written by A-list “Moneyball” scribe Steve Zaillian. Why let it go to waste? Maybe they are still considering an HBO or Netflix TV series for the remaining sequels. 

In any case, it looks like ace Brit writer Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders,” “Dirty Pretty Things,” “Burnt,” “Locke”) is going to adapt Swedish crime-writer-for-hire David Lagercrantz’s well-reviewed September international bestseller. “Dragon Tattoo” producer Scott Rudin is apparently still on good enough terms with Amy Pascal to produce with her at her new Sony shingle, along with Elizabeth Cantillon (“Concussion”) and the producers of the original Swedish series and movies starring Noomi Rapace, Yellow Bird. Rudin and Pascal are not casting yet but speculation is rampant that Swedish star Alicia Vikander is their favorite for the role. After “Ex Machina,” “A Royal Affair,” “Anna Karenina,” “Testament of Youth” and “The Danish Girl,” clearly she can do anything. 

“Spider’s Web” reunites hacker Salander and washed-up muckraker Mikael Blomkvist —who will be recast if Mara and Craig and their reps don’t see the error of their ways—in a new tangle of intrigue involving NSA cyber-spying, Russian mobsters and governmental corruption. With Craig likely to be done with James Bond, maybe this is just the franchise he needs.