David Fincher’s celebrated 2011 film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was originally intended to be the first of a trilogy. Based on the Millennium book trilogy written by Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was Fincher’s immediate follow-up to his Oscar-winning film The Social Network (2010) and also won the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Film Editing. It was released on December 21, 2011, and is currently streaming on Max.

Fincher is well known for his psychological thrillers such as Se7en, and Zodiac, and Gone Girl. He teamed up with Academy-Award winning screenwriter Steven Zallian and Academy-Award winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to create the celebrated The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo American adaptation. The book had previously been adapted in 2009 by Danish director Niels Arden Oplev. Both his and Fincher’s versions are critically acclaimed.

Daniel Craig & Rooney Mara’s Roles Were Recast For The Girl In The Spider’s Web

Craig alone would likely have made up half of the film’s budget

Although Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a critical success, its box office wasn’t necessarily impressive, earning just under $240 million worldwide against a production budget of $90 million. With Daniel Craig at the height of his 007 fame and Fincher reportedly wanting to increase the budget for his anticipated The Girl Who Played with Fire movie, Sony ultimately decided to pull the plug on the budding franchise.

The Millennium book franchise wasn’t revisited by Hollywood until 2018’s The Girl in The Spider’s Web, which recast both Craig and Rooney Mara with Sverrir Gudnason and Claire Foy. Since the film was under the direction of Fede Alvarez instead of Fincher, and had its budget cut in half to $43 million compared to the 2011 film’s $90 million, Sony chose to spend less on its cast. Considering Craig was paid $25 million for his last two Bond films, there was no way Sony was going to give him that for The Girl in The Spider’s Web.

Why The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Sequel Failed To Reboot The Franchise

The movie fell short in every possible way compared to Fincher’s adaptation

Compared to Fincher’s exceptional movie, which was complimented by Zallian’s script, Reznor and Ross’s score, and Craig and Mara’s leading performances, The Girl in the Spider’s Web was a critical dud. Additionally, the film isn’t a direct sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as it’s the fourth book in the Millennium series and the first to be written by a new author, David Lagercrantz. With a rough 38% Rotten Tomatoes score and Foy as the only draw, The Girl in the Spider’s Web bombed at the box office, which provides more evidence to the case that Sony should have let Fincher make his planned The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy.