With the release date for “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” looming about four months from now, director David Fincher is working down to the wire to get the film in the can. From what we’ve heard, he’s recently been in the midst of a few weeks of reshoots on the film which likely explains why Variety is reporting that longtime character Alan Dale has joined the story as a detective nearing retirement. Whether this is a new role or if Dale is stepping in for another thesp who couldn’t make the grade (or maybe make the reshoots) we guess we’ll find out soon enough, but if you want a reliable face who can deliver gravitas in his sleep, this is the guy you want.
There is no way you haven’t seen Dale in something. Among his more popular stints in the last little while was as the mysterious and duplicitous Charles Widmore on “Lost” or you might remember him as the prickly Caleb Nichol on “The O.C.” And more recently he popped up in “Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark,” the AMC series “The Killing” and even in “Priest.” Seriously, the guy is everywhere. At any rate, with Fincher still tweaking his picture it’s pretty clear why it hasn’t shown up on the fall festival radar, however, a splashy overseas premiere for the movie may be in the works.
With the film being shot and set in Sweden, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that talk is cropping up that ‘Dragon Tattoo’ may be headed to a premiere at the Stockholm Film Festival. Git Scheynius, director of the festival, is “optimistic” about the film unspooling first at her fest but cautions that piracy fears may put on a damper on those plans. “Ten years ago, it was easier to get [international] films, but now you have a very narrow time frame in which films are available,” she said about trying to land Hollywood films ahead of their release dates. Of course, this whole conversation all depends on if Fincher even has the film ready to go by time the festival kicks off on November 9th or will be using every spare moment between now and its December 21st release date to get it done to his exacting standards. It could really go either way at this point.
Regardless, another interesting chapter (ha!) to the Feel Bad Movie Of Christmas, and things are just starting to head up around the film.
