Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was a modern literary phenomenon, spawning a mini-media empire. First published in 2005 in Sweden, it launched the ‘Millennium’ series, which went on to include The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Since then, we’ve seen both American and Swedish movie adaptations, with Noomi Rapace, Rooney Mara and Claire Foy taking turns playing iconic hacker hero Lisbeth Salander.
Now it seems that we’re in for more, as Variety is reporting that Amazon and Sony are teaming up for a new TV adaptation of the property. Fortunately for viewers that might be getting a bit tired of the original stories, the upcoming show is set to break new ground, as it’ll take place in a separate continuity to the books, imagining what Lisbeth Salander would be like in the 2020s.
There’s no indication on whether the Millennium Trilogy will have already happened or not to this version of the character, but it appears that the goal is to fudge the timeline a little to keep her young. This makes sense, too, as Salander was in her early 20s in the stories set in the 2000s, so if they followed that timeline we’d be seeing her in her mid to late-thirties. All this means we’ll be getting a version of the character familiar to anyone that’s seen the movies or read the books.
Right now, there’s no indication of who Amazon and Sony want for the part or who’ll be writing/directing, though we do know that Left Bank Pictures’ Andy Harries, who worked on Quiz, The Crown, Strike Back and Outlander is executive producing. In any case, with Amazon’s basically limitless funding behind the project, I think it’s safe to assume that what we eventually get with this Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series will be something to keep an eye on.