Anybody who has either read Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Series or seen the original film adaptations directed by Niels Arden Oplev and Daniel Alfredson knows that David Fincher’s upcoming film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is going to have two potential sequels after its release. The question is, will he pass the torch to another director to make the English language versions of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and The Girl Who Played With Fire like Oplev did, or will he take them on himself?
Ace Showbiz reports that Fincher spoke on this very issue during a recent press release, and though he doesn’t sound all that thrilled with having to make Dragon Tattoo sequels, he’s probably going to do it anyway. He plans on making them the same way you pull off a bandage though, in one quick motion so that he can be done with it.
Fincher said, “The second two books are very much one story and it doesn’t seem prudent to me to go to Sweden for a year. Come back for a year. Put out the second one. Go to Sweden for a year. Come back for a year.” That sounds very reasonable to me, it probably would be much easier on everybody involved to take care of both movies in one extended shoot. But is that the only reason he plans on doing it this way? His additional comments seem to indicate that nobody involved is all that interested in making these movies in the first place.
Not only does Fincher opine that, “I don’t think Rooney [Mara] wants to be doing this four years from now,” he also talks about his own desire for sequels by saying, “Do I want to see a sequel for this? I would be happy for everyone involved as that would mean a lot of people went to see it and enjoy it. Do I need to see a sequel? No, there’s a little bit of an emotional cliffhanger at the end, but the story is complete.” Wow, way to get me excited for the next couple movies. You’ll make it because it will earn everybody a bunch of money, but you don’t really care either way? How about just not doing them at all and moving onto something you actually are interested in then?
The director even admits that he hasn’t read the second two books in the series, “I haven’t given the second and third books near enough scrutiny to be able to comment on [them],” but adds that, “I’ve seen Steven [Zaillian]‘s script for the second one and it’s really good.” I haven’t read the books either, but I have seen the original movie adaptations of the story, and I have to say that I would be perfectly happy if Fincher just made the first film and then passed the second two off to someone else so I can completely ignore them. This is a series of stories that went downhill for me pretty fast. What do you think? Are you looking forward to all three Fincher directed Lisbeth Salander movies, or are you impatient to see him do something else?