Kermode Uncut: Too Many Tattoos?

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has been made twice - once in Swedish and once in English language. The Hollywood remake has had a favourable reception but what does the box office tell us about the two films?

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Kermode Uncut
• Blog
• Mark Kermode
• BBC Radio 5 Live
• Daniel Craig
• David Fincher
• Rooney Mara
• Noomi Rapace
• Box Office
• The Ring
• The Grudge
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[nmoravec1]

I don't agree with Mark's opinion that box office proves the worth of the film. Despite the Fincher version being a remake, it's still a good, well-made film. Probably the best film I've seen all year in terms of engaging story, characters, and visuals. I'm opposed to almost all remakes that have come out in the last decade, but if there was to be an American remake of TGWTDT, I'm glad they got the right people to do it and as a result, it's a great film and very faithful to the original novel.

[MoonIightGraeme]

Well as long as people don't watch the original... Finchers version is the best.

[WAAAAAAAAAAAY]

I really like the original Girl With The Dragon Tatoo so I wasn't overly happy to hear last year that an enlgish language remake was being made [even though I'm a huge fan of David Fincher]. However the trailer looked so cool I had to see it

Honestly.....it is great. Very well written and acted, wonderfully directed. I felt Fincher gave the story a more cinematic feel. It's the first remake I've seen in a long time that didn't feel pointless or disappointing.

:)

[SamKarns]

From the level of high caliber actors including Rooney Mara, WHO DESERVES AN OSCAR NOD, Fincher's version brought a fully realized depiction which only honor's Steig Larrson's Millennium Series. This is the kind of adaptation readers and movie going should demand. Not some cheap budgeted TV movie that ended up in foreign cinemas. Fincher did justice to Steig's first novel.

[SamKarns]

Could anyone imagine if the film REALLY flopped what the kind of pompous crap he would spill online? I think Fincher's film is better because of the high standard Sony went with. The swedish version was a TV mini-series that was later released in theaters. The cast, despite Noomi Rapace stand up performance, and the prod. designs were based on the limited budget the producers had for the TV series and it shows.

[littlelicksable]

He wasn't really talking about how good the films are, he was talking about the point of making them.

If it isn't going to take any significant money, is there a point remaking it when the original was perfectly good to start off with?

[Konve]

Why is it described as a Danish/Swedish movie, instead of just a Swedish movie?

[Nomoredrama2000]

Why couldn't he talk about how good the films are instead of comparing how much money they made?

[21stCenturyCat]

I know in your book you say there is a guaranteed ingredient to a super-blockbuster (my words not yours) but surely the point is, for all other films when they are made of course the studios want a monster hit, but there are no guarantees.

And as you said, in the original film didn't do that well in the US, so that market is alone must have been considered a 'punt' by the filmmakers. And that's why they do it.

[mikeboy0001]

Usually I would have to agree that most american remakes out of European movies, are garbage, and it makes me sick how someone would rather watch a bad movie instead of great movie, only because the characters don't speak english

In this case however, I find the Fincher's remake a superior film to the Swedish adaption

The Swedish movie is good mainly because the book is great, while Fincher's movie could always be great, no matter what the story was on.

To me, this indicates a better filmaking.