18/09/2009

The Girl Who Played with Fire [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the much awaited second film adaptation of the Millennium novels written by Stieg Larsson, is coming out today on 125 Danish screens, 126 Swedish screens, and 70 Norwegian screens, courtesy of Nordisk Film Distribution. Finland will open next week.

Directed by the Sweden’s Daniel Alfredson, who takes over from his Danish counterpart Niels Arden Oplev, The Girl Who Played with Fire once again stars famous duo Noomi Rapace (a.k.a hacker Lisbeth Salander) and Michael Nyqvist (journalist Mikael Blomquist).

Alfredson, who also directed the third Millennium film, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (to be released on November 27 in Scandinavia), told Cineuropa that Millennium 2 and 3 are really “one long story about Lisbeth Salander. How she comes to terms with her past and learns how to be a free woman again. The big difference also is that she is very much a lone wolf in films 2 and 3. We get to see her a lot, but she doesn’t interact much with others.”

“Because of the stronger focus on Lisbeth Salander, Millenniums 2 and 3 will probably appeal even more to audiences, plus the character of Mikael Blomqvist will be more interesting, as we will actually see him working as an investigative journalist for Lisbeth’s freedom,” adds Alfredson. For him, the other strong characters in the new Millennium films are Lisbeth’s father Zala (Bulgarian actor Georgi Staykov) and her girlfriend Mimmi (Yasmine Garbi).

So far, the reviews in the Scandinavian press have been positive, giving the film between three to five stars (out of five maximum). Most reviews again praise Rapace’s excellent performance. Ahead of today’s opening, 35,000 tickets had already been sold in Denmark by Nordisk Film, who booked the biggest number ever of previews, and over 2,200 preview tickets were sold in Sweden.

The first Millennium film had almost three million admissions across the Nordic region and is still playing on Swedish, Danish, Finnish and Icelandic screens. Worldwide, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Niels Arden Oplev
interview: Søren Stærmose
film profile] sold over six million tickets, a record for a Swedish-language film. It is opening in Germany on October 1 through NFP.