Daniel Craig has a huge year, appearing in Dream House (with his new spouse Rachel Weisz), Cowboys & Aliens, and The Adventures of Tintin. There is one film, though, that has me more excited that the rest. After delivering the year’s best teaser trailer, David Fincher is unleashing his adaptation of the first novel in the popular Swedish trilogy, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Judging from the posters and that teaser, it is apparent Fincher is going for a much darker tone. I’ve avoided the Swedish film adaptations, but after reading the novels, it looks like The Social Network director will be doing justice to the graphic elements.
Daniel Craig recently sat down with Esquire (via Rope of Silicon) to talk about the adaptation. Check out his quote below.
It’s as adult as you can possibly make it. This is adult drama. I grew up, as we fucking all did, watching The Godfather and that, movies that were made for adults. And this is a $100 million R-rated movie. Nobody makes those anymore. And Fincher, he’s not holding back. They’ve given him free rein. He showed me some scenes recently, and my hand was over my mouth, going, Are you fucking serious?”
He raises his eyes, looks upward to describe what he saw in a set of Fincher’s dailies that startled him this way. You can imagine — the book contains sodomy and torture chambers and lighting people on fire. And yet, “it’s not that he simply showed me footage that was horribly graphic,” Craig says. “It was stuff that was happening, or had happened. And somehow you don’t see it.”
This is the adult thing: to not be obvious about it. “There’s more than one way to sense violence,” he says. “Much more powerful ways than seeing it step-by-step.”
It’s unbelievably refreshing to hear that Fincher was given $100 million to do whatever he wanted. He has shown his twisted side in films such as Se7en, and with Hollywood too often scared to develop films strictly for adults, this is easily one of my most-anticipated films of the winter. Judging from his last comment, Fincher seems to be doing more than just the obvious techniques to get under our skin. In addition, Craig also talked about a few of his other projects, including Steven Spielberg‘s The Adventures of Tintin, which can be read below.
“We shot it in mo-cap. Which is like: Fuck me, I’m literally in a leotard with a fucking helmet on, and a camera strapped to it. It’s Steven Spielberg, so every fucker in the world comes to visit. Fincher comes to visit. Clint fucking Eastwood comes to visit. It was just like, are you kidding me? I’m gonna meet these people dressed like this? Playing a pirate, wearing a leotard and a camera? Really?”
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo hits theaters December 21st, 2011. After his busy year, Craig will return as James Bond in Sam Mendes‘ Bond 23.
Are you more excited about Fincher’s adaptation with these new details?