The Making of – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Pre - Production

Conception and writingIn midsummer 2009 Sony began ‘pursuing the idea of mounting a new film version of the best selling mystery novel’.By December 2009, producer Scott Rudin secured the rights to making an english language version and Steven Zaillian was given the role of screen adaptor.In March 2010 they recruited David Fincher to direct. They then began scouting locations in Sweden.After about 6 months the screen writing was completed.In mid August Sony ‘put a marker’ on a December 2011 release date.

Preparation They went between Swede, Switzerland, studio interiors in Los Angeles, Norway and the UK to complete principal photography. This was completed in June.Cean Chaffin was recruited as Fincher’s producing partner. She began to research Sweden by looking into the typical weather, sunrise and sunset and historical information. – ‘I knew weather and daylight and darkness had to factor into the schedule in a big way’

CastingIt took 2 and a half months of searching for the female protagonist, Lisbeth Salander before they appointed Ronney Mara.This created a lot of media attention and publicity for the film as many other famous actresses were up for the role.The male roles were cast relatively quickly with Daniel Craig as Blomkvist and Stella Skarsgard as Martin.

Preparation – costume, hair and makeup

• five days after being cast as the lead female role, Mara was flown out to Stockholm

• She had to complete a training program learning martial arts, skateboarding, motorcycle riding and working with a dialect coach to perfect her swedish accent

• Costume designer, Trish Summerville refined the look for the character by giving Mara a severe hair cut, real piercings and fake tattoos.

Production

Gathering the team…As production began in Sweden, Fincher began working with a number of his frequent collaborators including cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth and production designer Donald Graham Burt.They considered elements such as the portrayal of the Swedish winter – ‘we went for that low winter light and warm fires……it was really interesting to finally get there, to see how low the light levels were, how low the sun was for such a big part of winter’

FilmingThe film was shot wholly using Red Digital Cinema Camera Company’s RED MX digital camera. At the end of each filming day, editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, based in Los Angeles, would assemble the footage and ‘transmit it to him for review’.

TitlesTim Miller was appointed the creative director and Neil Kellerhouse the designer for the title sequence. The title sequence includes references to the novels and exposes the themes and key characteristics of the year.The sequence was made using 3ds Max, Softimage, Digital Fusion, Real Flow, Sony Vegas, Zbrush, Mudbox and VRAY.

SoundtrackTrent Reznor was recruited to compose the score for the film.Instead of waiting for the first cut of the film he started work whilst they were still filming.

Release

ReleaseA screening took place in November 2011 as part of a critics only event.After this a promotional campaign commenced.Then the worldwide premiere on December 12th 2011 occurred in London followed by the American and the Stockholm opening.The film was then released in cinemas/ theatres from December 20th onwards.In March 2012 the DVD and Blu Ray were releaseed

ResponseDuring its American theatrical run the film grossed $232.6 million.The total international gross for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was $130.1 million.MGM, one of the production studios involved declared they expected the film to gross at least 10% more.It was reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes with a film rating overall of 86%, with an average of 7.6/10