Claes Bang, who broke out in the critically acclaimed Cannes Palme d’Or winner “The Square,” has landed a role as one of the antagonists in “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” the sequel to the smash hit “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”
Claire Foy is set to star as Lisbeth Salander and “Blade Runner 2049’s” Sylvia Hoeks is on board as Salander’s twin sister. The new installment of Sony Pictures’ Millennium franchise will commence production in January in Berlin and Stockholm. The film hits theaters on Oct. 19, 2018.
The studio had no comment on the casting.
The movie will be directed by Fede Alvarez, who helmed 2016’s surprise hit “Don’t Breathe” for Sony.
Steven Knight wrote the screenplay for “Girl in the Spider’s Web” with the team of Alvarez and Jay Basu, based on David Lagercrantz’s bestseller. Amy Pascal and Elizabeth Cantillon will join Scott Rudin and Yellow Bird in producing the film.
“The Girl in the Spider’s Web” will be the first in the series to be produced as an English-language movie in its initial adaptation. The previous books in the franchise have been adapted into three Swedish-language films, starring Noomi Rapace. Sony’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” toplined by Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig, was a remake of the Swedish movie of the same name.
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“The Girl in the Spider’s Web” was published in 2015 as the first novel in the franchise not authored by Stieg Larsson, the series’ creator and writer of the first three Millennium books about Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Larsson died in 2004.
This marks Bang’s first major studio role after receiving strong reviews for the Swedish pic “The Square.” The movie recently earned him a European Film Award best actor nomination. “The Square” is also Sweden’s official foreign-language entry for this year’s Oscars.
He is repped by UTA and Felix, Bloch, Erben, Agentur und Management.
