Sony Pictures Entertainment has confirmed that the studio has tapped Claire Foy to portray heroine Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”
The film will commence production in January in Berlin and Stockholm, and will be released on Oct. 19, 2018.
Fede Alvarez (“Don’t Breathe”) is set to direct.
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The screenplay is by Steven Knight and Fede Alvarez & Jay Basu, based on the global bestseller written by David Lagercrantz. Amy Pascal and Elizabeth Cantillon will join Scott Rudin and Yellow Bird in producing the franchise’s new film. The original “Millennium” series of crime novels featuring Salander were written by Stieg Larsson, who died of a heart attack in November 2004.
Foy is nominated for an Emmy at this weekend’s 69th Primetime Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in the hit Netflix series “The Crown,” from Sony Pictures Television. She previously won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for the role. The British actress also recently starred in “Wolf Hall” as Anne Boleyn. She just completed Steven Soderbergh’s experimental film, “Unsane,” and will begin work this month opposite Ryan Gosling on “First Man” for director Damien Chazelle.
Alvarez said, “I couldn’t be more thrilled about Claire taking the reins of the iconic Lisbeth Salander. Claire is an incredible, rare talent who will inject a new and exciting life into Lisbeth. I can’t wait to bring this new story to a worldwide audience, with Claire Foy at its center.”
“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.