The folks at the SoundWorks Collection have published yet another one of their excellent exposés on the audible world of Hollywood’s finest products. They’ve long been a bastion of quality exploration into the behind the scenes world of cinema magic. They also talk to some pretty talented people. In this case, they talk The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with the likes of Composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Sound Re-recording Mixer Michael Semanick, and Re-recording Mixer, Sound Designer, and Supervising Sound Editor Ren Klyce. These are the folks who have brought a world of sound to the cold, death-filled landscape to David Fincher’s re-adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s popular novel. Because for every dark, broody story about violence against cats and pale women, there must be an industrial soundtrack.

Sony isn’t slowing down on its adaptations of Steig Larsson‘s best-selling novels, so according to Entertainment Weekly, we’ll get a healthy dose of Lisbeth Salander and The Girl Who Played With Fire soon. Undoubtedly, unless the second one struggles worse, we’ll have The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest soon after that. Apparently there was some question as to the plan when The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo didn’t perform at insanely high levels. So far, the $90m-budget film has scored $72m worldwide, which isn’t all that great, but it’s still early in its life as a release at two weeks old. It’s not the crazy phenomenon that the Niels Arden Oplev flicks, but lightning so rarely strikes the same franchise twice. No matter what a studio believes. Checking the scoreboard, Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig are both signed up for two more movies, Steve Zaillian is already working on the script for the second film, but David Fincher is not secured. Maybe he’ll come back, maybe they’ll need to find a new director. Either way, the train is leaving the station and headed for a late 2013 release. Would you want to see Fincher stay on?

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that is about to turn 1-year old. As a digital entity, it always knew this day would come. It’s a matter of deduction, really. As a sentient being, it knows that each day is a blessing. Each night, however, is a curse — a curse full of delicious movie-related links. We begin this evening with a shot of Sylvester Stallone in Bullet to the Head, a new actioner from famed action director guy Walter Hill. What’s impressive about this image — beyond the fact that it features a man who, at this point, is old enough to receive Social Security — is that Stallone continues to look younger and leaner than ever. There’s something fishy about it. And whatever drugs he’s on, I want some, too.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly entertainment news column that collects all the best links of the day, then adds commentary. It is also glad to be back from its Christmas break and hopes you got everything you wanted. It got almost everything on its list. We begin this evening with a fun new image from Tim Burton’s upcoming stop-motion 3D animated film Frankenweenie. It comes to us via the folks at The Playlist, who are quick to remind us that said film is coming out in the fall of 2012. Perhaps this will be the Tim Burton film that allows us to forget the mistakes the director has made with 3D in recent years?

What is Movie News After Dark? This evening’s column, as evident in the above image and title, will be very Batman heavy. Because it’s impossible to live and work on the internet without running into a bunch of Bat-related stuff. So we might as well just get it out of the way. We’ll also mix in some Community. And Community/Batman crossover. We begin tonight with one of two brand new photos from The Dark Knight Rises. This one features Bane, as played by Tom Hardy, staring down Batman, as played by Christian Bale. Guess what happens next…

I have been an advocate of “Trent Reznor, Composer” after being blown away by the score he created for The Social Network last year (along with Atticus Ross) and was excited when I heard they were teaming back up again with director David Fincher for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. When the first teaser trailer for the film dropped, set to their pulse-pounding version of “Immigrant Song” (featuring Karen O), I was clamoring to hear more of the “turned up to eleven” sound that seemed like it would permeate throughout the “feel bad movie of Christmas.” Unfortunately, this in-your-face attitude seemed to live in this song alone and did not extend to the rest of the score. After releasing a six-track sampler (which you can download here), I realized this score was going to be much more subdued than their previous collaboration, but I was still intrigued and hopeful of what was to come. After hearing the music in the context of the film during a screening this past week, I couldn’t shake the surprising feeling I had when walking away from it – disappointed.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr pulls out his screening schedule, which looks like a gambling addict’s racing form. He bounces from huge, mainstream releases to minor indie award contenders. Facing motion-capture CGI, tattooed bisexual investigators, cross-dressing waiters, silent film actors, and a lead star who is literally hung like a horse, Kevin tries to make sense of the seemingly countless releases this holiday week. Exhaustion from this process makes it impossible to buy a zoo or face the 3D end of the world, but his movie stocking is full, nonetheless.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first book (and film) in Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s bestselling Millenium Trilogy. The books have sold 65 million copies worldwide, and the three Swedish films have done blockbuster business throughout Europe and excessively well during limited runs here in the States. This much we know. The mohawked elephant in the room though is David Fincher‘s American remake/adaptation that hits theaters this week. Was it necessary to remake something already popular on such a global scale? Can Fincher improve upon Niels Arden Oplev’s original film? Can Rooney Mara do an equal or better job with the role that made Noomi Rapace an international star? No. Yes. And hell yes.

Anybody who has either read Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Series or seen the original film adaptations directed by Niels Arden Oplev and Daniel Alfredson knows that David Fincher’s upcoming film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is going to have two potential sequels after its release. The question is, will he pass the torch to another director to make the English language versions of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and The Girl Who Played With Fire like Oplev did, or will he take them on himself? Ace Showbiz reports that Fincher spoke on this very issue during a recent press release, and though he doesn’t sound all that thrilled with having to make Dragon Tattoo sequels, he’s probably going to do it anyway. He plans on making them the same way you pull off a bandage though, in one quick motion so that he can be done with it.

Looks like Sony’s official bid to make you happy you’re not a member of a twisted and wealthy Swedish clan of apparent criminals is coming a day early! That’s right, “the feel-bad” movie of Christmas and the spark of one of film journalism’s biggest hullabaloos of the year is opening a whole day early (well, really about five hours early, if you’re into midnighters). David Fincher‘s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will now open on Tuesday, December 20 at 7PM. It’s a smart move by Sony, as the holiday marketplace is already damn crowded. Next week sees the opening of no less than nine new picks, with further expansion by awards bait flicks The Artist and My Week with Marilyn. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will be going up against a strong slate of other awards contenders – including War Horse, Albert Nobbs, The Adventures of Tintin, In the Land of Blood and Honey, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Oh, and The Darkest Hour is opening next week, too.

Fine, maybe you didn’t ask for it, but someone did! Incidentally, the person who wrote the film and wants to direct it! Weird, right? Commercial director (and second unit director for The Social Network) Noble Jones reportedly pitched a new take on Bret Easton Ellis‘s American Psycho (which of course already has already has its own, very fine, cinematic adaptation from Mary Harron, starring Christian Bale in one of his best roles, which hit theaters in 2000) to Lionsgate a few months ago, followed that by turning in a script within the last few weeks, and is now seeing an uptick in interest thanks to the entertainment industry’s insidery tracking reports. Thanks, assistants at WME who run these things, thanks a lot. Now that we’ve got all the bile out of the way, who the hell is Noble Jones and just what does he want to do with Bret Easton Ellis’s classic villain, popped-collar investment banker serial killer Patrick Bateman? Well, Deadline Rochester calls Jones “a Fincher protege,” which is most certainly not a bad thing. His take on the material moves the action to present day, taking it out of the gloriously yuppie-fied ’80s world that the novel and Harron’s film both lived in (which was sort of, oh, I don’t know, essential to the meat of the story). The film is deemed as “a down and dirty new version” and will reportedly by a low budget affair. The film has not yet been greenlit, but is in “early [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly collective of links and thoughts breaking down all the news and great essays from around the movie blogosphere. A celebration of quality programming, if you will. Thus, it becomes quality programming in and of itself. In short, it’s worth however long it takes you to read to the end (where we’ve strategically placed a Christopher Nolan-themed video as your reward). We begin this evening with the internet’s story of the night, Daniel Day-Lewis’ awesome Abe Lincoln beard, as shot by Virginia local Michael Phillips. He snapped a shot of the highly method actor in a Richmond restaurant (not far from where Steven Spielberg’s film is currently in production). Basically it looks like Abraham Lincoln with jeans on. So yes, that works. Also worth noting: It’s being reported that Day-Lewis has not dropped his Lincoln accent since March. That’s one hardcore mother-effing emancipator, right there.

One of Disney’s biggest historical successes came back in 1954 when they released a live action version of the Jules Verne story 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. They pumped a huge amount of money into that movie and all of its giant squid spectacle, and then saw their risky investment pay off when it became a hit. That was pretty much the beginning of Disney in the live action movie game. 1954 was a long time ago though, and there’s now probably a couple generations of people who have never seen that film, which is so important to Disney history. To fix that, the studio has been working on a remake for a while. So far the Leagues remake has been slow to get off the ground. At one point McG was set to be in charge of the whole thing, and a whole slew of different screenwriters were helping the process along, but that all fell apart. More recently David Fincher has been said to be involved in getting this one going, but it’s still not clear where exactly it fits into his schedule. The rumblings of Fincher making this movie soon seem to be getting a bit more credibility though, as Deadline Nantes is reporting that Se7en scribe Andrew Kevin Walker has been brought on board to help Fincher shape the re-told tales of Captain Nemo. There are probably about a million jokes to be made right now about all of the vile things that were in Se7en, [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Eric Roth is an outstanding talent, and script work for Benjamin Button, Munich and Forrest Gump have more than proved that over the years. We’ll get another look at his work when Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close comes out this Winter. Now, according to Variety, the screenwriter has entered into talks to write the adaptation of Stacy Schiff’s “Cleopatra: A Life,” whose rights were purchased by Scott Rudin. As previously reported, Angelina Jolie is set up to play the most famous of all Pharaohs. The David Fincher portion of the project isn’t set in stone, but it would be great to see him go all Mankiewicz on everyone, and Roth’s inclusion might be a key to locking him down. Since the pen is about to be put to paper, the only thing left for us is to imagine a world where Fincher forces Jolie to do scenes in the hot desert with thousands of extras 99 times before using the first take. There’s no telling how bombastic this movie might be, or whether Fincher may ultimately choose to do it, but it’s an amazing opportunity to return to spectacle-style filmmaking. How cool would that be?

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s not the nightly news column you want right now, but it’s the one you need. Because you need a nightly news column that will be strong in the face of adversity, cover the things you care about, and publish videos of Ryan Gosling being sexy without words. We begin tonight with a shot from the set of The Dark Knight Rises, something we’ve refrained from covering too much. However, I found this particular photo — one of a batch from Mail Online – that shows a tender moment between our hero, as played by Christian Bale, and his new foe Bane, as played by Tom Hardy. Just a little hug as Chris Nolan’s production occupies Occupy Wall Street in New York.

It was announced late Wednesday that H&M, a Swedish retail-clothing company with locations scattered about the United States, would be joining forces with costume designer Trish Summerville to create a line of clothing based on Lisbeth Salander, the goth, hacker, anti-heroine from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The 30-piece line will be hitting stores on December 14th to coincide with the December 21st release of David Fincher‘s adaptation of Stieg Larsson‘s best-selling novel. Here’s what Summerville has to say about the line, which looks to include leather jackets, tribal earrings, and ripped jeans among other “gothy” attire: “Salander’s look is very real and very lived in, with pieces that her character has worn for a long time. My goal is for women to find pieces in it they love and then mix with their own wardrobe to create their own personal style.” Which is all well and good, but doesn’t a clothing line based on this character kind of miss the point of the character? Never mind that Lisbeth Salander and the sure-to-be popular film will be influencing women of all ages to pierce their noses, get full-back tattoos, and cake on mascara. You have to wonder what Salander the character would think of a line based on her uniquely dark brand of dress and whether the whole idea is missing the point of her character completely. But it’s not the first time a David Fincher film has inspired a misrepresentation of one of its characters. The I Am Jack’s Smirking [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a collection of news that fell through the cracks, will make you crack up, or that’s addicted to crack. How can movie news be addicted to a controlled substance? It’s unclear, but it’s a harsh world out there when the sun goes down. We begin tonight with the vague news that Ghostbusters (the original) will be hitting theaters again in October. No, not a version of Ghostbusters III that’s been secretly filming for the past year amidst empty press releases. The original flick will play. But when? Where? The movie’s Facebook page is short on answers, and when I checked with Columbia/Sony, so were they.

Generally, the last thing in the entire marketing universe that interests me is an upcoming film’s website, but damned if Sony Pictures hasn’t conceived of a nifty site for their The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo English-language remake that isn’t packed with some fine material. The film already has enough to recommend it – it’s based on Stieg Larsson’s bestselling book series, it’s a stylish remake of a homegrown Swedish take on the material that few people saw stateside, and it combines the talents of director David Fincher and stars Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. Basically, you already know if you’re going to check this film out, but Sony isn’t sitting around counting painful piercings and bad tattoos until its release date – they’re coming for an audience with a surprisingly user-friendly site that may suck in people who’ve so far avoided the Dragon Tattoo phenomenon.

Kees van Dijkhuizen’s work is kinda great. While most fan edited montages of films you see online feel stilted and blandly cut together, Dijkhuizen’s don’t. Just watch the “this year in film” tribute videos he cut together for 2008 and 2009. They’re excellent. And for the past few months he’s been releasing love letters to some of the most praised directors working today. Dijkhuizen has covered David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Danny Boyle, Wes Anderson, Baz Luhrmann, and now with his best one yet, Michel Gondry. They’re all worth a watch, especially since they’re all directors known first and foremost for their style. Side note: This video is also a nice reminder that The Green Hornet is better than it’s given credit for. I’ll take Gondry’s anti-superhero pic any day over Green Lantern and — yes, I’m going to say it – Thor.

With the constant conversation about spoilers and trailers giving away entire films, it’s fascinating to watch the original trailer for Fight Club. It’s a trailer that was largely ignored and didn’t do much to bolster the movie’s box office numbers, but since its release, the philosophically bloody film has become a cult phenomenon partially known for its twist. Yet, even though this trailer shows a lot, it doesn’t give everything away. Even in scenes we now know to be crucial moments, the lines come out as generic one-liners that any drama or action movie might have. That may have hurt the film’s marketing overall, but at least it didn’t tell everyone the spoils in a dumb attempt to get them into the theater. A better question (or at least one that’s more fun) is whether you’d go see this movie or not. Forget the dozens of times you’ve seen it. After watching this trailer, would you go see a strange-looking flick from the director of Seven called Fight Club?