Sony Will Make ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire, Fincher Probably Not.
Sony is going ahead with the sequel to The Girl With Generic Ideas of Female Empowerment, and they’ll be marching on even if David Fincher isn’t going to helm the son of a bitch.
Slashfilm:
Here’s a minor update to Sony’s continuing plans to adapt Stieg Larsson‘s Millennium Trilogy. US box office is low, if holding relatively steady, for David Fincher‘s version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. As the movie has opened outside the US, foreign returns have been low, too. Foreign box office has become the salvation of many a film in the last few years, but even with those numbers factored in, Dragon Tattoo has earned only $100m worldwide so far – not even close to breaking even once promo costs are taken into account.
But Sony reportedly expects the movie t0 make $300m when all is said and done, and that’s enough to follow through with the sequels.
Indie Wire:
As of this moment, it seems doubtful. While the Sony/Scott Rudin/David Fincher collaboration was relatively smooth during “The Social Network,” such was not the case on “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” but this is a potential multi-million dollar franchise — the books have sold 18 million copies worldwide — and expectations were much different from the $40 million dollar ‘Social Network.’
Well placed sources — the same ones who helped us report first that Fincher would be directing ‘Dragon Tattoo’ in the first place (not a erroneously reported chess film) and the ones that first let us know that a relatively unknown actress named Rooney Mara was the “secret lead choice” for Lisbeth Salander (and see how that turned out) — have told us Fincher’s current plans probably don’t align with Sony’s.
His current plan is to shoot “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” sometime in the fall or by the end of 2012, depending on schedules. It’s got a great script by Scott Z. Burns (“Contagion”) that Fincher loves and as a 3D film with lots of CGI, it’ll require a ton of pre-production and post-production work (and “Se7en” writerAndrew Kevin Walker is currently hard at work on a re-write).
Sony’s current plan is to have “The Girl Who Played With Fire” in theaters for Christmas 2013, but if Fincher is in post for ‘20,000 Leagues’ which could take up to a year, it seems highly doubtful, almost impossible, that he would be able to squeeze in a ‘Dragon Tattoo’ sequel.
While Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig are committed to a trilogy, Fincher is not under contract. “Classically, movie studios don’t make deals with directors, even if there’s a hope that there’s going to be three [films], because they want to make sure you behave,” he said tellingly at the ‘Dragon Tattoo’ press conference in December. What he didn’t say and what no one’s reported yet is that the filmmaker has an option for “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” apparently Fincher’s favorite book of the three and will get paid $5 million regardless of whether or not he directs it which is a win/win for him.
I found the US version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a visually-impressive, well-acted clunky borefest. I appreciated Fincher’s efforts, but ultimately found the entire enterprise to be unrewarding, and so I’m hoping the dude doesn’t do the sequel. He is destined for more! Much more!