It isn’t exactly news, but I was just reading up on The Nordic Bookblog and found Peter’s Dec. 16th post about the prospects of the acclaimed Steig Larsson Millennium trilogy as a possible Sony Pictures acquisition.
Back on Dec. 15th, there was a press release from Sony’s Columbia TriStar Pictures which explained the option deal and credited veteran producer Scott Rudin and Ole Sondberg and Soren Staermose of Sweden’s Yellow Bird Films. This company was behind both the Swedish and BBC Wallander series and an upcoming six-part ninety-minute series based on works by Norwegian writer Anne Holt featuring Inspector Yngvar Stubø and psychologist and lawyer Inger Johanne Vik. Yellowbird have already produced three feature films and a six part TV series based on the Millenium Trilogy in Swedish. The films have been released already in many countries to high acclaim.
So why does Hollywood need to produce an English language version? According to the press release, “Yellow Bird Films has separately completed a filmed Swedish-language adaptation of the novels for Swedish television and home video release. Columbia Pictures is concluding its agreement to option the novels and produce new, English-language productions based upon the material.”
There’s a good article in the Houston Chronicle from January 10th by Maggie Galehouse that discusses the tradition and “art” of adapting novels into films. It takes a close look at the new Peter Jackson film The Lovely Bones and it states matter-of-factly how in Hollywood, “adaptations are presold commodities”. The success of the novel guarantees a high degree of movie ticket sales even if fans of the original book are often left disappointed. I mention this so we can all return here for a disappointment-prempting re-read of this article just before the Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomqvist Hollywood debut.
There’s sure to be a great deal of hype about this in the coming months. Stay tuned.
