Up for Grabs: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Do Summit Entertainment and Magnolia Pictures have their checkbooks ready? There is a breakout film that probably already received some lowball offers from the U.S. and benefits from a built in audience that existed a couple of years before a film like Let the Right One In made it fashionable for international buyers to go the Swedish thriller route. The foundation was first laid down by author Stieg Larsson whose “Millennium Trilogy” sold like hot cakes in his native Sweden, did just as well in Norway and Denmark, and then took over Europe and the rest of the world. Final result. 15 Million copies sold. Fast forward to 2009.

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first installment in what will be an eventual film trilogy, has made tons of dough in large and ancillary markets and has had brisk sales since the Cannes Film Market. Noomi Rapace is the film’s lead actress – she is dynamite talent and hardcore talent – I was blown away by this actress in a psychological meltdown of a dramatic role in Daisy Diamond.

Part I begins with a four decade old occurrence Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, ruthless computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet’s disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

Will this subtitled revenge pic find its way in the States anytime soon? Do any of our readers care to see this? Let us know what your thoughts are on the film or the trailer below.