‘The Girl In the Spider’s Web’ Has A New Title and It’s a Mouthful

Here is one of the official posters for the upcoming sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Look closely. See anything unusual about it?

Spot it? What’s going on with that subtitle? It’s no longer The Girl in the Spider’s Web, now it’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story. Henceforth if you call it just The Girl in the Spider’s Web, people will have no idea what you’re talking about.

From Sony’s perspective, this is probably the best of a bunch of bad options. The film is based on a sequel novel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and all the books in that series start with the phrase “The Girl” but nobody really calls them “The Girl books,” and even if they did that’s so generic it’s easy to miss the connection. The original trilogy of books about the character, Lisabeth Salander, are referred to as “The Millennium Series” — but The Girl With the Spider’s Web is the fourth book, so it’s not a part of that.

Plus, the original stars of Dragon Tattoo — Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig — are long gone, replaced by Claire Foy and Sverrir Gudnason. (David Fincher’s gone too; his job fell to Fede Alvarez.) Without their familiar faces and names on the poster one can’t assume that a casual audience will understand what this movie is. So what do you call it to make sure they do?

Obviously this choice sounds a lot like the nomenclature Disney is using for their Star Wars spinoffs (Like “Max Rebo And That Goofy Space Alien Band: A Star Wars Story”). It is a mouthful. But it does make it clear what you’re buying a ticket for. The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story opens in theaters on November 9.

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