Sky Is Working On A New Series Based On This Bestselling 00s Novel
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1 hour ago
It was previously adapted into a hit film starring Daniel Craig
As film and television studios continue to rely on trusted intellectual property – think all of the recent remakes and reboots from live action Disney moves to HBO’s Harry Potter series – it comes as no surprise that Sky is working on a new adaptation of one of the noughties’ globally bestselling novels, which was also previously adapted into a blockbuster Oscar-winning film in 2008.
We’re talking about Stieg Larsson’s neo-noir thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, first published posthumously in Swedish in 2005 before its English translation catapulted the late author and activist to international acclaim. Later in 2011 the film adaptation starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara continued the buzz, with Larsson’s subsequent novels in the trilogy – The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest – also flying off the shelves.
And while we are generally tired of reboots, following the success of Sky’s reimagining of The Day of the Jackal in 2024 we’re intrigued by this remake. Written and executive produced by Steve Lightfoot and Angela LaManna, here’s everything we know so far – plus when we might get to see it.
Sky’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: Everything We Know So Far
According to Sky, a new eight-part adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is in the works, following the huge success of the 2011 film of the same name. The news was announced yesterday (13 January), though very few details were shared.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was one of the bestselling novels of the noughties, the first in Larsson’s Millenium trilogy published after his sudden death in 2004. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was published in its original Swedish in 2005, followed by The Girl Who Played with Fire in 2006 and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest in 2007. Thanks to their English translations (the first published in 2008 and the latter two in 2009), more than 100 million copies have sold across the world, with Larsson the second-best-selling author in the world in 2008, pipped only by Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner (2003) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007).
The Plot
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo centres on Mikael Blomkvist, a Stockholm journalist recovering from the legal and professional fallout of a libel suit who is recruited by a wealthy industrialist to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance and presumed murder of his grandniece. The investigation brings him into contact with hacker Lisbeth Salander who he works with to untangle the decades-old knot.
Penned by Larsson in the early noughties, the novel is set in his contemporary Sweden, though the investigation reaches as far back as the ‘60s. The 2011 film adaptation meanwhile was re-set post financial crisis, and Sky describes Lightfoot and LaManna’s new television version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as a ‘bold and contemporary reimagining’. We’re told that this new adaptation will bring the plot and the characters we know into the present day – from the noughties to the 2020s. It also seems the new Sky series will highlight the existing themes in Larsson’s novels that ‘carry heightened relevance today’.
The Cast
While the 2011 film was led by Bond-star Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander along with Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger and Stellan Skarsgård as Martin Vanger, there’s no news just yet from Sky on who will star in this new TV version. We will update this page when we know more.
Who Is Stieg Larsson?
Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist, editor and novelist, best known for penning the Millennium trilogy, which was published posthumously to immediate acclaim. Before fiction made him famous, he spent decades as an investigative reporter exposing far-right extremism, racism and political violence in Sweden.
He died suddenly in 2004, before the publication of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and never lived to see the global success of his work.
Release Date
Sky has not yet confirmed a release date for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but we know filming is slated to commence in Lithuania in spring 2026. If we are lucky, we could see the eight-part series on the small screen as soon as 2027.
All episodes will air on Sky and stream on NOW, with a US distributor still TBC.
