The Girl in the Spider's Web

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  • Directed By: Fede Alvarez
  • Written By: Jay Basu, Fede Alvarez, Steven Knight
  • Release Date: November 9, 2018
  • Domestic Distributor: Sony
  • Cast: Claire Foy, Lakeith Stanfield, Sverrir Gudnason

Box Office Info:
Budget: $43 million Financed by: Sony; MGM; New Regency
Domestic Box Office: $14,841,338 Overseas Box Office: $20,323,582


Sony locked down the theatrical rights to the Millennium novel series in December 2009 with plans to launch a trilogy.  Even with the global success of the Swedish film trilogy, David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) was released to decent enough box office numbers ($232.6M worldwide), but sported an irresponsible $90M price tag which stalled the continuation of the series.  While there were development murmurs of Sony moving ahead with The Girl Who Played with Fire, once it was announced that David Lagercrantz was hired to continue the novel series started by deceased author Stieg Larsson, Sony decided to do a quasi reboot/sequel with The Girl in the Spider’s Web.

Sony maintained the theatrical rights to all future Millennium installments and hired Fede Alvarez to helm the project, who had just directed the hit Don’t Breathe (2016) for the studio and had also remade Evil Dead (2013) for Sony.  Rooney Mara landed an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander, but was replaced by Claire Foy and the Mikael Blomkvist character played by Daniel Craig was recast with Sverrir Gudnason.  The budget for The Girl in the Spider’s Web was a mid-range $43 million and Sony majority financed the picture and MGM co-financed.  Shortly before the movie’s release, New Regency invested into the project in October 2018.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web was distributed by Sony and it was first dated for October 5, 2018 and then moved to November 9.  Sony invested in a very strong domestic marketing campaign north of $40 million to launch this as a new franchise, but the film was tracking soft with an opening pegged in the low to mid teens.  It bowed against Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch and another genre pic with better reviews Overlord.

Reviews leaned negative and The Girl in the Spider’s Web was dead on arrival with $7,810,112 — placing #6 for the weekend led by The Grinch and the holdover Bohemian Rhapsody (also financed by Regency).  The picture plummeted 68% to $2,501,616 in its second frame and continued to post huge weekly declines in attendance and closed its domestic run with just $14,841,338.

This entry in the Millennium series was also rejected in the international market, where it grossed a terrible $20.3M.  Sony was developing the sequel The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, but after the dismal performance of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, that will likely be scrapped or rebooted yet again.

5 Comments

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  1. Rooney Mara IS Lisbeth Salander! What a mistake to not bring her back. She was amazing in that role and to re-cast Lisbeth is moronic. It is no surprise “Spider’s Web” bombed.

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