Scarlett Johansson & Natalie Portman Up for Dragon Tattoo Reboot

Scarlett Johansson & Natalie Portman both up for Dragon Tattoo reboot

Since its official announcement yesterday, the global search for an actress to portray Stieg Larsson’s iconic character Lisbeth Salander in Sony Pictures‘ The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo reboot isn’t straying too far from the same list filmmakers looked at for the 2011 film. Specifically, Variety is reporting that Oscar winner Natalie Portman (Black Swan, Jackie) and superstar Scarlett Johansson (Captain America: Civil War, Ghost in the Shell) are both in the running for the flashy computer hacker part in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, with other unnamed actresses under consideration as well.

Both Portman and Johansson (who starred together in 2008’s The Other Boleyn Girl) originally vied for the part under director David Fincher, alongside Ellen Page, Kristen Stewart, Jennifer Lawrence, Keira Knightley, Anne Hathaway, Olivia Thirlby and Emma Watson. Fincher ultimately cast the then-little-known Rooney Mara, though she and co-star Daniel Craig (playing reporter Mikael Blomkvist) will be recast for The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Noomi Rapace (Prometheus) originated the part in the 2009 Swedish film.

Johansson is currently reprising her role as Black Widow in Marvel’s epic Avengers: Infinity War shoot, while Portman (who just had a baby) is also in contention for the female lead in Ridley Scott’s real-life kidnapping drama All the Money in the World.

Fede Alvarez, the director of 2016’s breakout thriller Don’t Breathe, will helm The Girl in the Spider’s Web from a screenplay by Steven Knight and Alvarez & Jay Basu, based on the recent global bestseller written by David Lagercrantz. The production will begin principal photography in September of this year, with a release date scheduled for October 5, 2018.

Alvarez took to Twitter today to explain to a fan why he decided to nix Mara and Craig:

It’s said that 50% of the director’s work is casting. If I’d just take Fincher’s (amazing) casting, I wouldn’t be doing half of my job. https://t.co/IgfkK0BimV

— Fede Alvarez (@fedalvar) March 14, 2017

The Girl in the Spider’s Web will be the first in the best-selling series to be produced into an English-language film in its initial adaptation. The previous books in the series have been adapted into Swedish-language films, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a remake of the Swedish film. It became a global hit for Columbia Pictures, taking in over $230 million worldwide.

Scott Rudin, Søren Stærmose, Ole Søndberg, Amy Pascal, Elizabeth Cantillon, Eli Bush, and Berna Levin will produce; the executive producers are Anni Faurbye Fernandez, Line Winther Skyum Funch, Johannes Jensen, and David Fincher.

The Millennium Series is a worldwide bestseller, with the four books selling over 86 million copies since their debut. Sony’s Columbia Pictures retains the rights to all future Millennium Series books.