Sony goes forward with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sequels; Fincher not confirmed

Another day, another re-re-re-confirmation of Sony's plans to move ahead on sequels to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It seems like these are a constant, and I'm starting to think these stories spring from folks who desperately just want to see the flicks made. But the latest report comes from Deadine, who note that Sony is pushing ahead with The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, despite lackluster box office on David Fincher's film.


'Tattoo' hasn't been the wildfire success some thought it would be, earning only $76M in America up to this point. It has held fairly well over the last couple of weeks, and there's an outside shot it could crack $100 domestic. The biggest question to me has always been the foreign market, where the Swedish films were very popular and only released a couple of years ago. So far, the global returns have been slow, totally $29M. Sony has it in their heads that the film will make around $300M worldwide, and that is more than enough to justify making more. I think they're a little screwed up on that number, but we shall see.

If this is going to work, and Sony is to properly capitalize on 'Tattoo's possible Oscar buzz, then they need to act fast. The plan is to get the ball rolling by the end of the year or possibly in early 2013, and as has been speculated in the past, the sequels will likely be shot back-to-back. Steve Zaillian has been hard at work on the scripts for awhile now.

Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara are contractually bound to return, and I imagine just how fast these flicks move will depend on how busy Craig is.  The only mystery now is David Fincher, who is not locked by any stretch, and may be too busy with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which is going to have an extensive pre and post-production window due to the heavy CGI. Sony is also likely to take a second look at the release date, since the thought is that they may have overstepped by releasing such an uncomfortable, dark story right in the middle of Christmas season. Y'think?

Hopefully this will put to bed all this sequel talk. Just expect them to happen, but don't be surprised if Fincher isn't a part of them. The Millennium Trilogy has a consistently dark tone and atmosphere, so it would behoove Sony to find someone similar to Fincher to direct them. Anybody have any ideas on who that could be?