Summary
David Fincher’s celebrated 2011 filmThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoowas originally intended to be the first of a trilogy. Based on theMillenniumbook trilogy written by Stieg Larsson,The Girl with the Dragon Tattoowas Fincher’s immediate follow-up to his Oscar-winning filmThe Social Network(2010) and also won the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Film Editing. It wasreleased on June 17, 2025, and is currently streaming on Max.
Fincher is well known for his psychological thrillers such asSe7en, andZodiac, andGone Girl.He teamed up with Academy-Award winning screenwriter Steven Zallian and Academy-Award winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to create the celebratedThe Girl with the Dragon TattooAmerican adaptation. The book hadpreviously been adapted in 2009 by Danish director Niels Arden Oplev. Both his and Fincher’s versions are critically acclaimed.
Daniel Craig & Rooney Mara’s Roles Were Recast For The Girl In The Spider’s Web
Craig alone would likely have made up half of the film’s budget
Although Fincher’sThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoowas a critical success, its box office wasn’t necessarily impressive, earning just under $240 million worldwide against a production budget of $90 million. With Daniel Craig at the height of his 007 fame andFincher reportedly wanting to increase the budgetfor his anticipatedThe Girl Who Played with Firemovie, Sony ultimately decided to pull the plug on the budding franchise.
TheMillenniumbook franchise wasn’t revisited by Hollywood until 2018’sThe Girl in The Spider’s Web, which recast both Craig and Rooney Mara with Sverrir Gudnason and Claire Foy. Since the film was under the direction of Fede Alvarez instead of Fincher, and had its budget cut in half to $43 million compared to the 2011 film’s $90 million, Sony chose to spend less on its cast. ConsideringCraig was paid $25 million for his last twoBondfilms, there was no way Sony was going to give him that forThe Girl in The Spider’s Web.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo TV Show Is Already Honoring The Most Important Part Of The Book
The highly anticipated Girl With the Dragon Tattoo television adaptation on Amazon already looks to be in good hands with its dedicated showrunner.
Why The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Sequel Failed To Reboot The Franchise
The movie fell short in every possible way compared to Fincher’s adaptation
With a rough 38% Rotten Tomatoes score and Foy as the only draw, The Girl in the Spider’s Webbombed at the box office.
Compared toFincher’s exceptional movie, which was complimented by Zallian’s script, Reznor and Ross’s score, and Craig and Mara’s leading performances,The Girl in the Spider’s Webwas a critical dud. Additionally, the film isn’t a direct sequel toThe Girl with the Dragon Tattooas it’s the fourth book in theMillenniumseries and the first to be written by a new author, David Lagercrantz. With a rough 38% Rotten Tomatoes score and Foy as the only draw,The Girl in the Spider’s Webbombed at the box office, which provides more evidence to the case that Sony should have let Fincher make his plannedThe Girl with the Dragon Tattootrilogy.
How Old Lisbeth Is In The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
How old is Lisbeth Salander, the mysterious title character from David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, both on the screen and off?
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Cast
Based on the award-winning novel by Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo follows journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) as he searches for a woman who has been missing for 40 years. Along the way, he makes an unexpected ally in Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), who is a computer hacker and survivor of a traumatic childhood. The film is directed by David Fincher and won an Oscar in 2012 for Best Achievement in Film Editing.
