‘Don’t Breathe’s Fede Alvarez Helming ‘Dragon Tattoo’ Sequel

David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, adapted from Stieg Larsson’s novel of the same name, was supposed to become the next big franchise for adults, a hard-R-rated series dealing with adult topics and issues. The movie was fantastic, but didn’t do as well as the studio thought it should have, so any plans for a sequel have remained whispers until now. Screenwriter Steven Knight has confirmed that he is indeed working on a script for The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which will be a sequel, of sorts, to Dragon Tattoo, and Fede Alvarez, the director of this year’s Don’t Breathe who was being courted to direct, will helm the project.

Alvarez confirmed his own involvement to ComingSoon.net ahead of Don’t Breathe’s Blu-ray release. Sony had had its eye on him earlier this month, and it looks like they’ve reached a deal. As far as the plot of the movie, it’ll be a little different from Dragon Tattoo and focus more on hacker Lisbeth Salander, who was played by Rooney Mara in the American version of the movie. Screenwriter Steven Knight explained to Collider that Spider’s Web (the script of which he was commissioned to adapt), though the book is the fourth in the series, will be a Dragon Tattoo sequel.

A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it. And then, there are notes and you change it, in the conventional studio system. But, it was great fun to do because of the central character. With The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the girl is really the central character. She’s the whole thing. It’s not really Blomkvist.

Blomkvist, played by Daniel Craig in Fincher’s movie, is the journalist who works with Salander to find out those juicy bits of classified or hidden information about his subjects he shouldn’t have any access to. Spider’s Web is the fourth book in the series, written by David Lagercrantz after Larsson’s death. Making this one the sequel would skip over some time in the book series, but that might not be an issue for the movie, which wouldn’t have to address the events of the other books. Knight told Collider:

It can’t be anything other than a sequel, but a couple of books have been skipped, so it is different, in that sense. It’s really taking a very strong central character and thinking, how do you execute this? It’s quite different.

Rumors went around that Sony was looking to replace Rooney Mara with a different actress, but her Salander was so perfectly strange and yet sympathetic that the studio would be hard pressed to find an actress that would do the role as much justice. Craig seems pretty busy with James Bond these days, but he did shoot Dragon Tattoo between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall, so it’d be entirely possible for him to reprise his role. As of now, all the information we know is the book that’s being adapted and the director. Now that that’s all out in the open, casting announcements should arrive pretty soon.