Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig shined in 2011 when they worked alongside veteran director David Fincher to star in the iconic movie The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. With a murder mystery at hand amidst a dysfunctional family and an orphan hacker, the slow-burner thriller is one of Fincher’s finest.

Although Fincher eventually agreed to adapt the book into the 2011 movie, the director had initially rejected the pitch. Stating that he wasn’t interested in the story of a “lesbian hacker on a motorcycle”, Fincher feels that the movie was a swing and a miss for him.

David Fincher on the set of The Killer

When David Fincher Rejected The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Based on the novel of the same name by Swedish author Steig Larrson, the book was an international sensation overnight upon its release. Being a novel printed in Swedish, David Fincher was offered the opportunity to turn the novel into a movie.

Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Fincher had quite some words to say about how he initially rejected the idea because he didn’t find the plot interesting enough. Comparing the character of Lisbeth Salander to a lesbian, Fincher had a way with his words!
“I was offered Dragon Tattoo long before the first movie was made, and was in the middle of something else. And I was like, ‘Lesbian hacker on a motorcycle? I don’t think so.’”
After the book was translated into English, it was posed as a challenge to Fincher whether he could turn this masterpiece book into an equally fascinating movie. Taking up the challenge, Fincher couldn’t resist and eventually made the 2011 film.

“The thing went on to be a huge deal, and it came back around. I thought it would be interesting to see if you took this piece of material that has millions of people excited and you did it within an inch of its life — could it support the kind of money that it would take to do it?”
With the production budget reaching sky-high, David Fincher wanted to stay as true to the book as possible. Adding expenses to have the shoot in Sweden instead of Atlanta, Fincher was well aware of what would happen if he didn’t adapt the book faithfully.

David Fincher Wanted Originality Over Everything

David Fincher.
 

With an estimated budget of $90 million, Fincher created The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and tried to keep it as close to the book as possible. Since the story was set in Sweden, Fincher’s first remarks were that he did not want to disrespect the Swedish people.
“We had pledged early on that we wanted to make a movie that was not embarrassing to its Swedish heritage. 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. I was proud of it. I thought we did what we set out to do.”
Despite being quite a fantastic movie, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo managed to earn $100 million domestically (against a budget of $90 million) and became a cult classic for people to discover years later. With a high rating of 7.8/10 on IMDB and 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie is available to stream on Starz in the U.S.