It was almost exactly one year ago that Sony announced their intention to continue The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo franchise without the help of director David Fincher. At the time, their plan was to hire a new creative team to adapt the fourth book in the series, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which was written by David Lagercrantz after Stieg Larsson’s death in 2004. Now we are hearing that they may be close to settling on a director to replace Fincher, and it is Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez, the man behind the Evil Dead remake and Sony’s recent hit horror flick Don’t Breathe. Can he follow in Fincher’s footsteps and continue to elevate these movies beyond their literary limitations?

According to Variety, Fede Alvarez is currently Sony’s top choice to direct The Girl in the Spider’s Web, their soft reboot of the Stieg Larsson’s so-called Millennium series. The book was adapted by Steven Knight (Locke, Eastern Promises) and it finds hacker Lisbeth Salander reteaming with investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist once again. The project is supposedly a high priority for Sony and is on the fast track to be made next year.

The Variety piece is strangely silent on the issue of casting. As far as we know, Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara will not be returning, although Mara claimed earlier this year that she still had the role. Last year Alicia Vikander was rumoured to be in the running to play Lisbeth, but her career has exploded as of late and it seems unlikely that she would have any openings in her schedule next year anyway. Are you looking forward to The Girl in the Spider’s Web and do you think Fede Alvarez is an interesting choice to direct?