Fede Alvarez Says He Wanted to Start New With The Girl in the Spider’s Web Cast

Director Fede Alvarez spoke with EW about recasting Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist for The Girl in the Spider’s We. Alvarez explained why he wanted to use his own cast for the film, instead of having Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig reprise their roles from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

“There was a lot of debate — but not with me — mostly debate among the studio, if they [were] taking that route or not,” Alvarez told the site. “Eventually, I think it was me coming in, saying, I preferred to have my own cast. As a director, I just didn’t like the idea of taking someone else’s cast. As much as I admired Fincher as a filmmaker I think Rooney Mara is Fincher’s Lisbeth, right? And I wanted to find my own.”

Claire Foy plays Lisbeth in the film opposite Sverrir Gudnason as Mikael Blomkvist, Lakeith Stanfield as Ed Needham and Stephen Merchant as Frans Balder. Sylvia Hoeks, Claes Bang, Christopher Convery, Synnøve Macody Lund, and Vicky Krieps also star in the film, which is set to release on October 19th.