Sony’s “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” starring Claire Foy as avenging heroine Lisbeth Salander, is set to world-premiere at the Rome Film Festival, which announced a strong lineup Friday mixing crowd-pleasers with esoteric titles. The festival also boasts an impressive roster of speakers who will hold onstage conversations, including Martin Scorsese, Sigourney Weaver and Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux.
Foy, who takes over the role previously played by Noomi Rapace in the “Millennium” saga by late author Stieg Larsson, is expected to make an appearance on Rome’s red carpet, along with several key cast members, including Sverrir Gudnason, Sylvia Hoeks, and director Fede Alvarez. The movie is based on the novel by David Lagercrantz, who continued Larsson’s “Millennium” series.
Sony has set a Nov. 9 U.S. release date for “Spider’s Web,” preceded by an international roll-out beginning this month. The date of the Rome world premiere is still being kept under wraps.
As previously announced, the Oct. 18-28 Rome festival will open with U.S. director Drew Goddard’s pulpy mystery-thriller “Bad Times at the El Royale,” starring Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, Chris Hemsworth and Jon Hamm, who are expected to make the trek. The closing film will be Italian director Paolo Virzi’s Rome-set “Notti Magiche,” which looks at the the golden age of Italian cinema in Rome through the tale of three promising screenwriters who turn out to be the main suspects in the murder of a famous producer.
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Sandwiched in between are a mix of Hollywood awards-season hopefuls and crowd-pleasers such as Eli Roth’s “The House With a Clock in Its Walls,” Barry Jenkins’ “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and Joel Edgerton’s “Boy Erased,” plus more off-the-radar international titles, including Dutch first-timer Rosanne Perl’s coming-of-ager,”Light as Feathers,” set in a Polish village, which premiered in Toronto.
The first two episodes of Chan-wook Park’s first television series, “The Little Drummer Girl,” an adaptation of the John Le Carre novel for the BBC and AMC, will segue to Rome from its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.
Besides “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” Rome has also secured the world premiere of a high-profile European pic, Studiocanal’s family adventure “Mia and the White Lion,” starring Melanie Laurent (“Now You See Me”) and Langley Kirkwood (“The Catch”), about a 13-year-old girl who develops a rare and special bond with a wild lion.
Besides Scorsese, Weaver and Fremaux, this year’s Close Encounters guests will include Cate Blanchett; Michael Moore (who will screen anti-Trump documentary “Fahrenheit 11/9”); and Giuseppe Tornatore. Scorsese and Isabelle Huppert will be feted with a lifetime achievement awards.