It’s now been 4 years since David Fincher’s re-imagining of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The film was met with generally favorable reviews, but its $232.6 million return from a $90 million budget meant that the intended sequels soon took a step backwards. However, Rooney Mara is still very much interested in playing the character of Lisbeth Salander again, though she admits that she’s had to quell her expectations that the films will actually happen.
I spoke to Rooney Mara today about her role as Tiger Lily in Pan. I was intrigued to find out about the future of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, especially since there had been speculation earlier this summer that the second and third books could be merged together to make a single film. Mara admitted that she hadn’t actually heard this particular rumor regarding the future of the films, though she insisted that she’d love the opportunity to play the computer hacker again. Mara said:
I think that was just a rumor. I don’t get any updates on that. I would love to continue playing that part. It’s something I’ve really wanted to do now for the last three years, or however long it has been. I just don’t know, it’s been so long now. I really, really, really would still love to do it. But I’ve had to come to peace with the fact that I probably won’t.
After the release of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, writer Steve Zallian originally had a whack at the follow-up, but then Se7en’s Andrew Kevin Walker was hired to re-write the script. Since then though there has pretty much just been silence.
That was until earlier this year, when it was teased that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’s sequels, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest, might be merged together. But it was also suggested that legendary director David Fincher would be kicked to the curb in order to make way for a more populist, less expensive filmmaker.
Obviously, any film that loses David Fincher is immediately at a disadvantage. But the more you think about it, it would actually make sense for the studio to come to this decision, as his darker tone doesn’t usually chime with mainstream audiences. If Fincher does actually drop out of the potential Girl With The Dragon Tattoo films, it will be interesting to see if Rooney Mara continued.
Mara’s career hit a new level after she starred in The Social Network, and after leading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo opposite Daniel Craig, she was propelled even higher up the Hollywood star system. David Fincher directed both of those films.
The relatively low box office return means that Columbia and MGM were always likely to make different creative decisions in order to try and appeal to as wide a demographic as possible. But since so much time has passed now, it’s looking more and more unlikely that the films are actually going to get made at all.
