Fede Alvarez on reinventing the series for The Girl in the Spider’s Web

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Lisbeth Salander will be returning the big-screen this Friday with yet another actress stepping into the role. The young computer hacker was first brought to life by Noomi Rapace in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, who reprised the character for THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS' NEST, followed by Rooney Mara taking over for David Fincher's English-language remake of the first film. The latest film, THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB, will find Claire Foy stepping into the role.

As THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB also serves as a soft-reboot of the franchise, director Fede Alvarez was free to reinvent the series somewhat in order to put his own stamp on it. Alvarez recently spoke with Fandango about what first attracted him to the project.

I always look to do things that I can put myself into. Meaning, I write all my movies, I wrote this one, I wrote Evil Dead, I wrote Don't Breathe, and that is a way for me to not just be the guy that shoots it, but to put my voice in it – to talk about the themes and ideas I'm interested in. So, when you go to do a bigger studio movie like this coming from Don't Breathe, not a lot of them have the room for you, at least for me with the tones and things I'm interested in, to talk about. It felt like the world of Millennium and the world of Dragon Tattoo was going to be the perfect sandbox for me to come in and play. And so, it was partly that the tone of those books felt like it was in the world of my movies, and at the same time, it's obviously the character of Lisbeth Salander, who I'm just fascinated by. She's probably the most interesting character in literature in the last decade.

Despite THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB being based upon the fourth book in the series, Fede Alvarez still felt that it was the right fit for the new film. "You don't really need to have seen or read the books to enjoy the story – to really understand what's going on – and we honor all the past stories of the characters, but you can see the way they look at each others," Alvarez said. "At a glance, you understand that those two have a history – particularly Blomkvist and Lisbeth – but then, story-wise, it's not that you need to have seen something to understand why [something is] happening and this felt like a good clean start in a way for the new audiences. But at the same time, it's giving the audiences – the ones that are fans of the movies and the books – a great continuation to a story they've seen before." At the end of the day, Alvarez hopes that audiences walk away having had a great time.

Honestly, for me, it's always about giving them a great time. That's the main thing. I make movies that, hopefully, are crowd pleasers. That's what I try for every time – to really entertain the audience in the time they spend at the theater – and more than anything, it'll hopefully make them watch a movie they felt they never saw before. Which, I think, this is what this is. It has elements of things that feel familiar but they combine in a way that I think they rarely get combined, especially not recently. There hasn't been a movie that combines the elements of this one the way we did. So… it's the ingredients that, in a way, you have tasted before, but combined they make for this special dish you've never had and that's really what I'm looking forward to… you know, for the audience to have – to try this new thing, this different kind of movie, that has a lot of elements that feels familiar but combined in a way that they've never experienced before.

THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB will hit theaters on November 9th.