More Movies Based on Larsson Books for Sony

Despite disappointing openings for the English language version of the screen version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Sony Pictures has said they’re going to go ahead with other film versions of the other books in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy.

Like Dateline Hollywood, January wonders if Sony is now rethinking the wisdom of having opened Girl With the Dragon Tattoo as a Christmas film. The darkness of both tone and material would likely have lent the film to a more auspicious release at any other time of the year. As it was, the R-Rated film did not do well against the two big PG-13 Rated Christmas 2011 winners: Mission: Impossible 4 and Sherlock 2. Dateline’s Nikki Finke reports:

Sony Pictures is indeed going forward with The Girl Who Played With Fire already written by Steve Zaillian, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest which Zaillian is penning. Studio chief Pascal and producer Scott Rudin have not yet locked in David Fincher as director. But they’re looking to start shooting #2 by the end of this year/beginning of next. Overseas, Sony now expects GWDT to do over $200M — so $300M all in globally. “And that’s a really good number,” the Sony exec told me hopefully. But one mogul counters, “The surprising part is that Sony is not waiting to see if the movie works overseas before going forward with the sequels. I would have.”

All of this would seem especially true in light of the very successful Swedish language version of the film released a few years ago.

Just can’t get enough of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? The Rap Sheet has written about everything Larsson -- film and book -- since before anyone else was paying attention. Those links are all here.