1. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Sony/Columbia, 2,800 Theaters, 158 Minutes, Rated R): With the Harry Potter and Twilight franchise at an end, Hollywood is looking for a new literary series to bring to the big screen. Problem is, they have been looking for quite some time.
Not many book series have the feverous fanbases that the two mention above do. And those that come close don’t translate to the screen very well. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events was a modest box office success but hasn’t resulted in the rest of the series being adapted to the screen, possibly because the first film reworked the first three books in the series into a more lighter, kid friendly fare. 2005’s Sahara was supposed to be the first in a long line of movies featuring Clive Cussler’s popular Dirk Pitt character, but casting decisions and legal battles between Cussler and the producers cause at least one Cussler fan I know to shun the movie. She wasn’t alone as the film failed to make back its budget in its original release.
Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, of which The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was the first entry, created an incredible buzz and, on paper, this film seems like a slam dunk to be a box office success considering the talent involve. However, there is a lot working against it. The marketing has garnered attention due to its sexuality and, moreover, its vagueness, the latter being more damning. On top of that, there is a perfectly good Swedish adaptation of the trilogy that was just completed last year. And finally, it’s being opened during a week where there are a lot of big ticket blockbuster openings.
This film has a long road to success. And it seems that Hollywood might just have to keep looking for its next big literary franchise.
