The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is coming back for more ink, albeit on the small screen. Amazon is developing a series centered aroundStieg Larsson’s feminist hero Lisbeth Salander that will not use the author’s Millennium books. Instead, the resourceful hacker will feature in all new stories and situations.
Varietybroke the news of the series, which is currently titledThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and does not have a writer or a lead actress attached. Let me echo my colleagueAllie Gemmillin saying that this seriesneedsa female voice behind the camera. The book’s original Swedish title wasMen Who Hate Women, and yet somehow, Lisbeth has been co-opted by male filmmakers and perverted into a kind of leather-clad male fantasy. The last time we saw Lisbeth, in 2018’sThe Girl in the Spider’s Web, she’d been turned into an action star, and I barely recognized her as the same character played byNoomi Rapacein the original movie trilogy. Amazon needs to take the character back to her roots and drop her companion, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, because he’s always been dead weight.
Meanwhile, the larger story here is Amazon’s new literary strategy, asJennifer Salkewants the streamer to become the official home of all your favorite airport books. Amazon already has a Jack Ryan series and a Harry Bosch series, it is currently casting a Jack Reacher series, and it’s developing an Alex Cross series, too. If only Amazon could find a way to acquire the Lincoln Rhyme series from NBC. Then it’d really be in business.
Amazon Studios will produce the newDragon Tattooseries with Sony Pictures Television, while Left Bank Pictures founder/CEOAndy Harries(Outlander) will executive produce alongsideRob Bullock(The Night Manager).
Over the course of six books, the Lisabeth Salander series has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. Rapace originated the character onscreen beforeDavid FinchercastRooney Marain his chilly remake, which remains his worst film, in my humble, Fincher-loving estimation. Most recently,Claire Foyplayed the character inSpider’s Web, which was meant to launch a franchise, but instead flopped at the box office.
I know I took a minor jab at Fincher’sDragon Tattooadaptation above – I didn’t say it was bad, mind you, just that it’s his weakest movie – but one of the coolest things about that film was its opening title sequence, which was directed byDeadpoolhelmerTim Miller. For more on that memorably creepy footage,click here.
