The Girl Who Played With Fire hasn’t exactly been a fast-tracked project over at Sony. Since the 2011 release of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, things have been slow on the sequel front. Screenwriter Steve Zaillian has a ready-to-go script, but Sony hasn’t been keen on sinking another $90m into the project. That was the cost of the first movie, and while it did make over $230m worldwide, it wasn’t the major hit everyone was hoping for.
Now Sony has another reason – or possibly an excuse – to stall. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Craig ‘s asking price for the sequel is too high for their taste. They didn’t specify how much Craig wants, but coming off the billion dollar success of Skyfall, it’s logical to guess he wants a good chunk of change.
Billion dollar box office aside, why would Sony give in? Craig isn’t exactly a box office star, he’s James Bond. Looking over his recent filmography, Dream House, Cowboys & Aliens, The Golden Compass, Defiance, and The Invasion, none of those films proved Craig’s presence equal success when he’s not playing an iconic spy.
Sony is aware of that, which is probably why they’re not afraid to threaten cutting his character, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, out of the sequel. That probably won’t happen, since there’s a good chance of the movie never happening, and if they did go forward, they’d probably keep Craig around.
Whether director David Fincher would return is the bigger question, as he’s been keeping busy developing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and talking with Fox about helming another adaptation, Gone Girl. However, THR mentions that Fincher hasn’t lost complete interest in the project, but that there have been budget disagreements between him and the studio.