David Fincher Admits His ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Adaptation Was “A Swing and A Miss”

David Fincher’s 2011 adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was Hollywood’s second shot at bringing Stieg Larsson’s bestselling series to the silver screen (and it wouldn’t be the last). But Fincher’s commitment to remaining faithful to the series could have possibly cut the franchise short.

Speaking at a masterclass conversation at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, Fincher reflected on what it was like tackling the adaptation.

“We did it the way that we could,” he said. “And when people said it cost too much for what the return on investment was, I said, ‘Okay, swing and a miss.'”

The movie netted $102 million in the U.S. box office, meaning it didn’t return much more than the $90 million the film took to make. Part of this cost was due to Fincher’s commitment to filming in Sweden instead of Atlanta, which the studio suggested.

“We had pledged early on that we wanted to make a movie that was not embarrassing to its Swedish heritage,” he explained. “They said, ‘Well, can you shoot it in Atlanta?’ I was like, ‘Well, no. Atlanta for Sweden? I don’t know.’ We wanted it to be true to its essence. You shoot in Sweden, you’re shooting for eight or nine-hour days, if you’re lucky. And so the movie took 140 days to shoot.”

The film’s lackluster box office success caused Sony Pictures to cancel the multi-movie deal they initially penned with Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.

He also revealed that he was offered the chance to adapt the book before it was translated to English and became a bestseller in the U.S. “I was offered Dragon Tattoo long before the first movie was made, and was in the middle of something else,” he said. “And I was like, ‘Lesbian hacker on a motorcycle? I don’t think so.'”

Lisbeth Salander’s character took the world by storm in the 2000s and 2010s, spawning three separate film adaptations and a possible television series.

Rooney Mara’s portrayal of the slick hacker in Fincher’s 2011 adaptation was critically acclaimed, earning her a Best Actress nomination at the 2012 Academy Awards. Daniel Craig starred opposite her as journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Together, the unlikely partners set out to untangle a mysterious disappearance.

Fincher later served as an executive producer on the sequel/reboot made by director Fede Alvarez in 2018. It starred Claire Foy as Salander and Sverrir Gudnason as Blomkvist.

Regardless, the Oscar-nominated director maintains that he’s “proud” of the movie. “I thought we did what we set out to do,” Fincher said.