David Fincher Describes His Adaptation Of 'Dragon Tattoo' As 'Swedish Noir'; On Set Photos Of Rooney Mara And Daniel Craig

With his film "The Social Network" barely released, David Fincher has already begun production on his next directorial effort — the much-talked-about adaptation of Stieg Larsson's first Millennium trilogy novel, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo."

Speaking with the Swedish media, Fincher described his take on the source material to SVD (via a rough translation from ThompsonOnHollywood) as "Swedish noir" further noting that he was "looking to try to catch Sweden. I hope I can find an atmosphere reminiscent of "Chinatown." Steve Zaillian has written the new screenplay, and he has based it on the book and made his own version. Sure, there are scenes that will resemble ones in the Swedish film, but it is the book that we are filming. "
Closer, detailed looks at stars Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig have also been unveiled with the first batch of on-set photos from the Swedish production. Craig, admittedly, pretty much looks like his usual self playing Michael Blomkvist while Mara — who'll portray the bixsexual computer hacker Lisbeth Salander — looks quite unique even compared to Noomi Rapace in the Scandinavian adaptations. She definitely bares some similarity to Fincher's own inspiration for the character though, South African rapper Yo-Landi Vi$$er.

The actress can currently be seen in "The Social Network," a performance which didn't quite win her the role but definitely put her in the mind of her director and in contention with a whole host of other names. "We saw everybody," Fincher explained at a recent 'Meet The Filmmaker' event. "And I know a lot of shit's been written about a) I didn't know what I wanted or b) I already knew what I wanted and I was just out to torture people. Neither of which was true. We had a really difficult void to fill because she needs to be a mystery and we need something that worked. But, [Mara's] great."
"She's a really hard worker, super diligent about understanding the text and all the stuff that had to happen. I don't think I was thinking of her per se as much as — my line producer said 'What about Rooney?' and [casting agent Laray Mayfield] said 'I brought her back in. She's on tape, you should see her.' And we saw her and thought, kind of all the things I thought when I saw her audition for ['Social Network']. She's real smart, she's awesomely photogenic in a weird way. She can be really plain and she can also be very kind of Audrey Hepburn and stunning."

Mara and Craig star along side Robin Wright, Stellan Skarsgaard, Christopher Plummer, Joely Richardson, Steven Berkoff and David Dencik with the film scheduled to hit theaters December 21, 2001. Shooting is currently taking in Sweden. [Rooney-Mara/DailyMail/JustJared]