'Blade Runner' breakout Sylvia Hoeks joins 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' sequel

By Justin Kroll

After breaking out in Blade Runner 2049, Sylvia Hoeks is looking to move on to another franchise revamp.

The Dutch actress is in talks to join Claire Foy in Sony’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Foy, who stars in the Netflix series The Crown, is on board to play Lisbeth Salander. 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. Hoeks will play Salander’s evil twin in the pic.

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, starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig, was a remake of the Swedish movie of the same name.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web was published in 2015 and is the first novel in the series 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.

Hoeks is well known in European markets, but her recent turn as the villainous replicant in Blade Runner 2049 caught the eye of Sony, which partnered with Warner Bros. on the film. The studio also had her on the shortlist for the female lead in Venom and, even though the role ended up going to Michelle Williams, Sony was adamant about finding a role for the rising star.