David Fincher Thinks a 'Dragon Tattoo' Sequel Could Still Happen

David Fincher is busy right now making the press rounds for Gone Girl, a film many are expecting to be a major box office hit and possible awards player. It would be a good way to bounce back from his last adaptation of a global best-seller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The R-rated thriller took in a disappointing $230M worldwide, way below Sony's expectations, and movement on a sequel has varied between slow-moving and non-existent. Fincher has also been shaky on whether or not he would return, but recent comments made to a Swedish outlet (via FilmDivider) suggest he still thinks The Girl Who Played with Fire could happen. Here's the apparent translation...

Fincher: "I think because it [Sony] already has spent millions of dollars on the rights and the script so it will result in something. The script that we now have a huge potential, I can reveal as much as it is extremely different from the book."

So basically Sony has already thrown a lot of money at it and they can't let it go to waste. We saw some movement last year when Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven) was brought on to rewrite the script but there's been nothing heard about it since. There's also the issue of Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara's schedules. A rumor had surfaced some time back that Craig's character could be written out entirely, while Fincher famously fought with Sony over Mara's casting. She's pretty busy these days, and one has to wonder if she would even want to come back. For that matter, Fincher has been reluctant to work with Sony again after the previous ordeal.

It's probably a good idea to consider all of these factors, plus the questionable translation, before deciding if it's worth getting excited over.

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Could Daniel Craig be written out of future 'Dragon Tattoo' sequels?

Sony didn't do quite as well as they hoped on David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It still managed about $230M, although they were angling for $300M. Partially due to that rather wide gap we've seen them take a measured approach to any sequels, with the most recent update saying 2014 might be just the right time. Fincher will apparently return, and the same goes for Rooney Mara who will have even more to do as the stories shift to Lisbeth Salander's past. But what about Daniel Craig? Well, that's not quite so certain anymore.

THR says Craig is seeking a pay raise, which Sony obviously doesn't want to do since these are expensive enough and aren't all that lucrative. If push comes to shove, the possibility has been put out there of them taking the nuclear option and writing his character, Mikael Blomkvist, out of the films completely. Steve Zaillian has already written the script for The Girl Who Played with Fire, which obviously includes Blomkvist, so he'd have to be commissioned to draft another one. That would be pricey in and of itself, not to mention the damage done to the franchise without Craig's starpower. Plus, Zaillian's got enough on his plate putting together HBO's Criminal Justice with James Gandolfini. It just doesn't seem like a viable option.

This is all probably just some negotiating tactic, anyway, and nothing will come of it. At this point I'm not completely convinced we'll see a 'Dragon Tattoo' sequel. Fincher will be busy for awhile developing House of Cards' second season, while he's also got the recently announced Gone Girl and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea percolating. Craig has that whole James Bond thing to fall back on, too, with the next one likely to begin production later this year.

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'The Girl who Played with Fire' moved to 2014....maybe

Deep breath, Lisbeth Salander fans! You'll be getting your sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo after all, it'll just be a little later than you'd hoped. Like a year later. There had been some question whether or not Sony would invest in The Girl who Played with Fire after the first film did just a hair over $100M domestically, but a substantial haul in the foreign market sealed the deal, and Steve Zaillian was hired to get crackin' on a script. Earlier this year, Sony had everything mapped out for production to begin in a year, which would have had the film hitting theaters near the end of 2013, but now that's no longer the case.

Instead, the film will open in 2014, and even that's kind of a soft target date. It could be later than that if Zaillian's script needs work, or if the busy Daniel Craig and  Rooney Mara have other things going on. Both are locked up for all three movies, so one way or another they'll be a part of any follow-ups. The big question is whether or not David Fincher will return as director. He's not confirmed for anything right now, although he remains Sony's top choice. Personally, my interest in the entire franchise plummets without him.

While Sony has given us constant assurances that The Girl who Played with Fire would happen, I guess it's good to hear it one more time. [EW]

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The Girl Who Played with Fire

I'm at a loss to figure out why the film adaptations of Stieg Larsson's extremely popular Millennium trilogy of novels haven't quite clicked with me. The Swedish film noirs have been the apple of many a crime fans eye, elevating its enigmatic heroine, Lisbeth Salander(Noomi Rapace) into something of a Princess Leia for the modern times. In fact, the books have been so popular that David Fincher is preparing an American film adaptation of the trilogy. The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second leg of the series, and while it is superior than its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it still doesn't spend nearly enough time developing a story worthy of Lisbeth's or our attentions. Instead it presents yet another poorly developed mystery, pieced together at a glacial pace, counting on our interest in Lisbeth to be enough.

Lisbeth is in a completely different place than she was in the last film. Flush with cash, she disappears for a worldwide trip to get some distance from the pain of her most recent adventure. But it doesn't really help.She's still obsessed with the man who brutally raped her in the last film, her court appointed guardian, Nils Bjurman. She meeted about some pretty harsh justice on him for his crime, but she pays him yet another visit just to emphasize the point. Soon after, Bjurman turns up dead, and Lisbeth is the prime suspect. Around this same time, two journalists working on a sex-trade expose for her former lover Mikael Blomkvist's magazine wind up murdered as well. Lisbeth goes on the run, and Mikael throws caution out the window in order to clear her name.

The sexually charged mystery provides the perfect opportunity to delve into Lisbeth's history of abuse. Her father, Zalachenko, was a former Soviet spy with a penchant for beating up Lisbeth's mother. Lisbeth, then 12 years old, took fiery steps to end the cycle of violence, an act which got her thrown into the penitentiary and labeled a crazy person. The script by Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg only wakes up when Lisbeth is in full-on revenge mode. Director Daniel Alfredson seems to be struggling to keep up what little momentum the lackadaisical plot has conjured up. Most of the clue finding revolves around Lisbeth typing away at her computer, or Mikael reading the newspaper. Not exactly compelling stuff. The villains of the story are so poorly developed that one of them is a hulking, blonde-haired Arian brute who doesn't feel pain. He's like a transplant from a bad James Bond film. Alfredson's directorial influence is non-existent.

There's still a disturbing pall that hangs over the story, much like in Dragon Tattoo. The world inhabited by these characters is one of extreme mysogeny and sexual hatred, where all the men are loathsome creatures capable of anything at any time. Only Mikael Blomkvist seems to be the knight in shining armor, at least as portrayed by Michael Nyqvist.  A lot of people have praised him for his performance, but i find Mikael to be the least interesting character of all. He's a little too perfect, despite attempts to dirty him up a little here by giving him a fling with a co-worker. What he really needs is a personality injection. If he were any more understated he'd be dead. Only Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth stands out. It would be so easy to misplay her character, a bisexual mathematical genius suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. Rapace is all intense attitude and presence. When she's on the screen, it's impossible not to sit up and take notice. Ok, it doesn't hurt that she's got a little goth hotness goin' on.

I don't know what Fincher has planned for these remakes. In most cases, the prevailing worry is that they'll replace potboiling mystery with unnecessary action, in order to make their film more marketable. This might be the one times where I'm hoping that they'll inject some much needed adrenaline into this solid if unspectacular franchise.

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