The production of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo took over a year and involved extensive location scouting, casting, and preparation. David Fincher was recruited to direct in March 2010 and principal photography was completed in June 2011 across locations in Sweden, Switzerland, Los Angeles, Norway, and the UK. It took 2.5 months to cast Rooney Mara in the lead role of Lisbeth Salander. Mara underwent intensive training and her character's severe appearance was created through hair, makeup, and prosthetics. The film was shot using Red Digital Cinema cameras and Trent Reznor composed the score. It had its premiere in December 2011 and was a financial success, grossing over $232 million in the US.

1. The Making of –
The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo

2. Pre - Production

3. Conception and writing
In midsummer 2009 Sony began ‘pursuing the idea of mounting
a new film version of the best selling mystery novel’.
By December 2009, producer Scott Rudin secured the rights to
making an english language version and Steven Zaillian was
given the role of screen adaptor.
In March 2010 they recruited David Fincher to direct. They then
began scouting locations in Sweden.
After about 6 months the screen writing was completed.
In mid August Sony ‘put a marker’ on a December 2011 release
date.

4. Preparation
They went between Swede, Switzerland, studio interiors in
Los Angeles, Norway and the UK to complete principal
photography. This was completed in June.
Cean Chaffin was recruited as Fincher’s producing
partner. She began to research Sweden by looking into
the typical weather, sunrise and sunset and historical
information. – ‘I knew weather and daylight and darkness
had to factor into the schedule in a big way’

5. Casting
It took 2 and a half months of searching for the female
protagonist, Lisbeth Salander before they appointed
Ronney Mara.
This created a lot of media attention and publicity for the
film as many other famous actresses were up for the role.
The male roles were cast relatively quickly with Daniel
Craig as Blomkvist and Stella Skarsgard as Martin.

6. Preparation – costume, hair
and makeup
• five days after being cast as the lead female role, Mara
was flown out to Stockholm
• She had to complete a training program learning martial
arts, skateboarding, motorcycle riding and working with a
dialect coach to perfect her swedish accent
• Costume designer, Trish Summerville refined the look for
the character by giving Mara a severe hair cut, real
piercings and fake tattoos.

7. Production

8. Gathering the team…
As production began in Sweden, Fincher began working
with a number of his frequent collaborators including
cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth and production
designer Donald Graham Burt.
They considered elements such as the portrayal of the
Swedish winter – ‘we went for that low winter light and
warm fires……it was really interesting to finally get there,
to see how low the light levels were, how low the sun was
for such a big part of winter’

9. Filming
The film was shot wholly using Red Digital Cinema
Camera Company’s RED MX digital camera.
At the end of each filming day, editors Kirk Baxter and
Angus Wall, based in Los Angeles, would assemble the
footage and ‘transmit it to him for review’.

10. Titles
Tim Miller was appointed the creative director and Neil
Kellerhouse the designer for the title sequence.
The title sequence includes references to the novels and
exposes the themes and key characteristics of the year.
The sequence was made using 3ds Max, Softimage,
Digital Fusion, Real Flow, Sony Vegas, Zbrush, Mudbox
and VRAY.

11. Soundtrack
Trent Reznor was recruited to compose the score for the
film.
Instead of waiting for the first cut of the film he started
work whilst they were still filming.

12. Release

13. Release
A screening took place in November 2011 as part of a
critics only event.
After this a promotional campaign commenced.
Then the worldwide premiere on December 12th 2011
occurred in London followed by the American and the
Stockholm opening.
The film was then released in cinemas/ theatres from
December 20th onwards.
In March 2012 the DVD and Blu Ray were releaseed

14. Response
During its American theatrical run the film grossed $232.6
million.
The total international gross for The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo was $130.1 million.
MGM, one of the production studios involved declared
they expected the film to gross at least 10% more.
It was reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes with a film rating
overall of 86%, with an average of 7.6/10