23/03/2009

Following the historic success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Niels Arden Oplev
interview: Søren Stærmose
film profile], Swedish broadcaster SVT has agreed to allow the other two film versions of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest [+see also:
trailer
film profile], to be released theatrically before being broadcast on television.

The announcement was made on Friday by Gunnar Carlsson, head of Drama at SVT and executive producer on the films, who said, “We at SVT have thoroughly considered this move. For Swedish films to be able to develop in a positive way we need strong admissions figures. All those who can contribute to this have a responsibility.”

SVT and the Swedish production house Yellow Bird had originally agreed to make only the first book into a feature film, with the two other novels geared towards TV, as a 6x90’ series, and straight-to-DVD distribution. Danish filmmaker Niels Arden Oplev was hired to direct the first adaptation and Sweden’s Daniel Alfredson the two others.

All three films star Noomi Rapace as IT hacker Lisbeth Salander and Michael Nyqvist as journalist Mikael Blomqvist.

When the Millennium trilogy became a literary and theatrical phenomena in Scandinavia with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (1.5m admissions in just three weeks), Yellow Bird and all involved in the film put pressure on SVT to reconsider the original deal, and are now satisfied with Carlsson’s decision. “Stieg Larsson’s successful novels and all cinema audiences really deserve this,” said the company’s Sören Stærmose, who produced the films together with SVT, German broadcaster ZDF and Nordisk Film.

The planned release date in Sweden for The Girl Who Played with Fire is mid-September 2009 and late November for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet‘s Nest.

Meanwhile, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo continues to break admission record across Scandinavia. It will next open in Finland on March 27.