Sonic Apprehension: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Comes To Film

The award-winning Swedish film based on the critically-lauded thriller novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is coming out in the US next month! Fucking A!

An American remake is already planned! Fucking why?

There are rumors about a Hollywood version of the first novel.[7][8] Yellow Bird executive producer Søren Stærmose confirmed in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Expressen that negotiations for such a version are taking place. These would not be simply US remakes of the Swedish films, but rather new Hollywood films based on the books. In the interview, Stærmose stated that the US films might be produced similar to the Yellow Bird co-produced Wallander TV Show starring Kenneth Branagh, shooting in Sweden using English-speaking actors. He also said that it is up to the director, and the story could just as well take place in another country, such as Canada.[9] According to The Guardian, George Clooney, Johnny Depp, and Brad Pitt are all interested in playing the central role of Mikael Blomkvist;

Oh fuck.

and producer Søren Stærmose of Yellow Bird, who holds the screen rights to the books, has been approached by directors including Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, and Martin Scorsese. [10] [11]

Oh fuck.

On December 16, 2009 leading Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported that Sony Pictures Entertainment are in final negotiating with Yellow Bird about the film rights according to Yellow Bird Managing Director Mikael Wallén. Steve Zaillian has been in discussions to adapt the first book. [12][13]

OK, bringing in the screenwriter for Schindler’s Fucking List is pretty hardcore, I’ll grant you. But what is the point of a remake? The film has already been nominated for 3 European Film Awards and won Best Film at the Swedish Oscars (ok, the Guldbagge Awards, same thing). It’s pulled in $100 million across Europe. The whole trilogy has been filmed. Fuck, all you have to do is put decent subtitles on there and release the film to every Landmark cinema in America. Why go to all this trouble and risk all this money on retelling a story Hollywood will most likely fuck up anyway?

Not to usurp Fyre’s inky little corner of the site, but let’s talk book. I enjoyed TGWTDT well enough as a summer read. Its real strength for me lies in what I have to call its Nordicness. The book is slow, deliberate, and increasingly claustrophobic; the story circles the reader like a half-hungry wolf waiting for a wounded doe to die. I mean that in the best way possible.

Picture a man, safely bundled up against the cold, trudging through a blinding snowstorm. He is following the shape of a woman, also bundled, struggling against the wind and barely visible between flurries of the snow. He takes step after slow, laborious step, getting a bit closer or further from the woman with each step. Eventually, after much toil, he reaches the woman and touches her shoulder, only to have the form turn upon him, revealing a hungry and furious polar bear.

It’s a bit like that.

It actually reminds me in some ways of the great Let The Right One in, another wonderfully oppressive Swedish story whose imminent American remake is completely unwarranted. In fact, the second trailer for TGWTDT, while wisely attempting to establish the Lisbeth Salander franchise early on, chops up scenes from the book into a rock-em-sock-em American montage, turning what outght to be a slow burn into a fireworks show:

I am really nervous about this US adaptation, and the the LTROI one as well for that matter, out of the simple fear that the entire movie will be remade in the fistfights-and-blowing-shit up mold of this mongoloid trailer.

Prove me wrong, Hollywood.

[h/t Must Watch Movies]