Dragon Tattoo Sequels Moving Forward Without Fincher?

Despite gaining plenty of critical acclaim and taking in a healthy $233 million worldwide in 2011, there hasn’t been any movement lately on a sequel toDavid Fincher’sThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The project was based on the first of authorStieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy books, which were followed byThe Girl Who Played with FireandThe Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. There has been plenty of talk over the past few years about whether or notThe Girl Who Played with Firewould ever move forward, but now we have a new report fromThe Hollywood Reporterindicating the sequel may very well happen, although without director David Fincher.

The new interest in getting a sequel off the ground comes from the recent announcement that Knopf is publishing a new Millennium series novel entitledSpider’s Web, written byDavid Lagercrantz. While this new entry was not written by the late Millennium trilogy authorStieg Larsson, the story does continue the exploits of hacker Lisbeth Salander, who was played byRooney MarainThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Knopf’s announcement sent fans into a frenzy, with over 500,000 copies of the book to be made available in the U.S. alone for a global release on September 1. The response to this new book is what has Sony interested in moving forward with their theatrical franchise.

The Hollywood Reporterreveals that Sony is now considering combining bothThe Girl Who Played with FireandThe Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nestbooks into one movie, while makingSpider’s Webthe third leg of their film trilogy.The Girl with the Dragon Tattoocost $90 million to make under directorDavid Fincher, and the studio wants to make the sequel for a much lower cost without the director. Sources say the studio also has the rights toSpider’s Web. Former Sony Pictures chiefAmy Pascal, who negotiated for the rights toStieg Larsson’s books, is not in favor of this idea, because it would mean that the studio would be forced to shelve aSteven Zaillianscript that only coveredThe Girl Who Played with Fire, which Sony paid mid-seven figures for.

It isn’t known ifRooney Mara(Lisbeth Salander),Daniel Craig(Mikael Blomkvist) or any of the other Girl with the Dragon Tattoo cast members will be coming back. ProducerScott Rudin’s involvement in the sequel is also unclear at this point. Are you excited that Lisbeth Salander may finally come back to the big screen? Let us know what you think below.