27/11/2009

Nordisk Film Distribution is launching today Daniel Alfredson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the final film based on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, on approximately 320 screens across Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

Just like the second film, Hornet’s Nest centres on the enigmatic and charismatic character of Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). After a long time spent in a hospital for a serious head injury, she manages to be discharged only to enter into police custody, accused of the attempted murder of her father Zala. Meanwhile, Millennium journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) investigates her past to try and prove her innocence.

For Hornet’s Nest, Nordisk Film is using the same print-run formula as for the first two films, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Niels Arden Oplev
interview: Søren Stærmose
film profile] and The Girl Who Played with Fire [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]: 126 screens in Sweden, 125 in Denmark and 70 in Norway. Finland will follow in January.

“We are not changing a winning formula as we’ve had such success with the two previous movies,” said the group’s Nordic marketing manager, Klaus Odegaard.

The success saga of the Millennium films produced by Yellow Bird started in February 2009 when the first film reached Scandinavian screens. Following the nearly three million admissions sold across the Nordic region for the first film, the second instalment has been seen by over 2.4 million spectators in the Nordic territories (as of November 19), of which one million in Sweden, nearly 774,000 in Denmark and 473,000 in Norway. Odegaard says the results were “better than expected.”

Elsewhere in Europe, The Girl Who Played with Fire opened in Spain and Italy and will be released in Belgian and Dutch cinemas early 2010. Total admissions are so far at around 3.2 million.