David Fincher is known for a number of films and TV shows, though his 2011 adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo isn’t one that gets talked about as heavily. With widespread critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Rooney Mara (along with a still pretty great opening title sequence), the movie mainly exists as a one-and-done affair, even when Sony attempted to try and franchise it out with 2018’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web.
Amazon MGM Studios is now trying their hand at adapting Stieg Larsson’s thriller novels with a new TV series. Per Variety, the show recently bagged Veena Sud as its showrunner; Sud previously developed AMC’s The Killing for its entire run, and has plenty of experience in the crime thriller genre. She’s previously written and executive produced for shows like Cold Case and Push, Nevada, and directed The Lie, a 2018 psychological horror film on Prime Video.
A Dragon Tattoo series was first revealed to be in the works all the way back in 2020. Despite sharing the same name as the 2005 novel, the series is said to have a whole new setting and cast of characters, with the focus on aimed on hacker Lisbeth Salander. (At time of writing, that role remains uncast, just as it did three years ago.) It’s also presently unclear if the show (whenever it comes out) will try its hand at adapting any of the books written by Larsson or his eventual successors, David Lagercrantz and Karin Smirnoff in what’s been dubbed the Millennium series. Lagercrantz’s trilogy ran from 2015-2018 and comprised Spider’s Web, The Girl Who Takes an Eye For an Eye, and The Girl Who Lived Twice; Smirnoff’s run only just began with 2022’s The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons, which was published in English this past August.
With a history of adapting crime and fantasy novels as of late, it’s likely that Amazon will get Dragon Tattoo out the door. The bigger question is if audiences will turn up for it, since folks seemed thoroughly disinterested in Spider’s Web and any possible more installments. But it could be that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and folks are ready to watch the procedural adventures of an asocial hacker on a weekly basis.
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