Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Female Lead Announced

Well, that's a relief!  After it seems months of speculation the female lead for the remake of the Swedish film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has finally been announced.  Phew!  The role has gone to a little known actor Rooney Mara who beat off quite a few better known names to win the part.  Fortunately the director, David Fincher has maintained from the start that he wanted a relative unknown for the role and he seems to have got his way.

The competition was fierce.  Emma Watson, Natalie Portman and (unbelievably) Scarlett Johansson were, it seems, considered for or wanted to play the coveted role of Lisbeth Salander.  It remains to be seen whether a Hollywood adaptation of this tale of serial murder and corporate backstabbing involving five generations of the Vanger family will be any good (when does Hollywood ever improve on foreign language films?).

She is likely to make a pretty penny out of the movie, particularly if it is successful and the sequels to Stieg Larsson's novel, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest are also filmed.  Her contract certainly includes that possibility so she may well have the pleasure of working with that well known well of eternal humor, the British actor Daniel Craig (the recession seems to have put paid to any ne Bonds) who will play the journalist Mikael Blomkvist.

Rooney Mara has something of a mixed resume - from The Winning Season to the remake of the horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (the remake wasn't quite so classic).  At least the waiting is over and we can now start looking forward t the movie (with many fingers crossed) which should be released in early 2012.

Image Credit Wikimedia