10 Actors Who Got Kicked Out Of Their Own Movie Franchises

Though there was initial skepticism about Rooney Mara's ability to convincingly play goth hacker Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher's U.S. remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Mara promptly proved her doubters wrong, delivering a thoroughly transformative performance which netted her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Following its success, a sequel was quickly expected to follow with all the key personnel returning, yet due to the first film's large budget and modest box office performance, Sony proved gun-shy about green-lighting another movie.

Despite Mara remaining enthusiastic about reprising her role, the sequel languished in development for many years until 2015, when Sony announced The Girl in the Spider's Web, a soft reboot with no original cast or crew returning.

Even following the announcement, Mara insisted that she was still attached to the project, saying, "As far as I know I'm doing it until someone tells me otherwise."

By 2017, Mara had finally been officially replaced by Claire Foy, and even without Fincher's involvement in the sequel, Mara expressed disappointment that she wasn't asked back. She said, "I was hopeful to come back, but they decided to do a different thing. It was always a character I wanted to revisit; but that's not what happened."

She may have had the last laugh, though, as the reboot-sequel received middling reviews and sank like a stone at the box office. Still, given the incredible craft of that first movie, it's a damn shame Mara never got to play Lisbeth again.