Mar 26, 2010 By Chris Tinkham

Danish director Niels Arden Oplev didn’t seem like an obvious choice to direct The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the screen version of the first book in Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson’s immensely popular Millennium trilogy. Oplev’s previous film, Worlds Apart, was an intimate family drama about a teenage girl confronting the doctrines of her religious denomination, Jehovah’s Witnesses. Oplev initially declined producer Sören Staermose’s overtures to direct the much-anticipated film adaptation, but Staermose’s persistence paid off. Prior to its release in the U.S. and UK, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo grossed over $100 million worldwide, easily becoming Sweden’s most successful film. More