(Credit: Netflix)

David Fincher‘s adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was released onto a strange cinematic landscape in 2011. Based on the novel of the same name by Steven Zaillian, the film had an interesting beginning; with an endless writing process, scheduling conflicts and a tumultuous casting period for the role of Lisbeth, it seemed like a project doomed from the start. But even with the constant pre-production hurdles, the film is a masterpiece, despite Sony’s disappointment in its overall success and insistence that it had “flopped”.

Despite the commercial “failure”, it remains to this day as one of my favourite Fincher projects, showing the director at his grittiest as he puts his own spin on the murder mystery in which the murder becomes a backdrop to the cruelty of humankind, instead focusing on the intertwining storylines of those around the case and the desperate search for any form of hope and redemption in a starkly vicious world and the wounds left by evil people.

But even when Fincher is arguably at his best, the film was deemed a disappointment, and since then, we’ve seen few original thrillers of a similar budget level. Is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo responsible for the demise of this genre?

The plot follows a journalist called Mikael Blomkvist, who is hired to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl who went missing over 40 years ago, recruiting a computer hacker called Lisbeth, someone who is dealing with her own personal demons. The movie is meticulously made, with stellar performances from Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in the lead roles, with a grim despair to it that feels graphic and quite painful to watch, with a bleak ending that emphasises the death of humanity and decency itself.

It was largely met with critical acclaim, with the film being nominated for Academy Awards in multiple categories, such as ‘Best Cinematography’, ‘Best Editing’ and ‘Best Sound Mixing’, and Rooney Mara for Best Actress. However, despite the level of craftsmanship and innovation on display from all creatives involved, Sony was ultimately disappointed in the movie’s sales, with it barely making $100million in the United States against its budget of $90m.

Originally, the film was supposed to be part of a trilogy, but the plans were eventually scrapped after the movie’s lack of commercial success, with Sony choosing not to develop the remaining two projects in the series. Mara was initially linked to the later projects, and a leaked email from the actor showed her desperately asking when the next film would go into production, eager to reclaim her role as the brooding cyber-hacker. But alas, no such plans were made, with the movie’s “failure” remaining as an enigma in what was predicted to be a colossal success.

With the rise of IP and sequels, many studios are reluctant to take a risk on original content, and when a project like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (which had all the odds in its favour) didn’t achieve the predicted level of success, it marked the beginning of a tumultuous era within the film industry. Because if David Fincher can’t attract a big enough audience to appease the suits, then who can?

The mysterious fate of this film seemed to spur an unspoken wave of cynicism in the industry. Studios were afraid to take a swing at projects of a similar scale, and fewer original projects were greenlit. Those in power preferred to reserve big budgets for less risky stories.

Perhaps the film’s dark subject matter is what made it less appealing to mass audiences, with Sony marketing it as the “feel bad Christmas movie of the year” due to its release over the festive season. Or maybe it was the cost of the project that ultimately killed its chances, with the shoot ending at a staggering 160 days, with additional days being added due to the number of night scenes. Some critics have speculated that the decision to invest in such a high-concept film destroyed its chances at success, with a budget too high to recoup.

While similar directors such as Christopher Nolan are consistently given huge budgets to realise high-concept thrillers and action movies, they always bring in enough viewers to justify the costs. So, what went wrong with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? And what separates it from the likes of Inception and Oppenheimer?

Despite its gritty exterior, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has a distinctly emotional core. It’s a story that doesn’t sugarcoat the horrors of the world: the corruption, evil, and abuse of power and authority by those who come from old money. As Lisbeth and Mikael pick apart the tragedy of one family, they’re exposed to a wider web of lies that connects them to collective trauma and pain, creating a brutal tragedy that obliterates any sense of hope or optimism. But just at the end, when all hope seems lost, we’re fed a moment of sincerity; Lisbeth is in love with Mikael, and we faintly wonder whether he might feel the same way. We briefly imagine that this love could restore our faith in humanity, that the only heartbeat to the story could offer some redemption.

But Fincher does not let us linger in the delusion of a happy ending, and he quickly destroys its one and only humanitarian strand. Lisbeth races through the falling snow, a moment of tenderness as she wraps a present for Mikael alongside a signed card with an image of a horse, an innocence that sits in stark contrast to the rest of the film. But as she eagerly awaits Mikael from a distance, baring a loose resemblance to the great Hollywood romances as people race through airports and bars to confess their love, he slowly emerges arm-in-arm with another woman as though nothing happened. There is no redeeming light, no revolutionary love that defies all odds, no good man that is different to all the rest. Everyone is as bad as each other. Lisbeth drives away into the night, vulnerable in her moment of brief hope, returning to the familiarity of solitude, which, given the horrors we’ve seen, is probably safer.

And perhaps it was this ending that butchered the film’s chance at commercial success. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo isn’t afraid to alienate audiences with its unwavering bleakness and constant escalation of suffering that offers no respite or reassurance. In the hands of Fincher, hope is feeble and futile. In comparison, Nolan’s movies are glammed up fairy tales, and a film about the making of the atomic bomb carries as much punch as a dying hamster, a confused puddle of inadequacy that is self-important in its imitation of seriousness but plays it safe by not saying anything at all.

Fincher has since reflected on the film’s underwhelming response, saying, “I thought it would be interesting to see if you took this piece of material that has millions of people excited and you did it within an inch of its life — could it support the kind of money that it would take to do it? We did it the way that we could. And when people said it cost too much for what the return on investment was, I said, ‘Okay, swing and a miss.”

In an era of filmmaking where safe and commercial stories are becoming the norm, with movies that don’t challenge audiences but instead appease/affirm them, it’s no surprise that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s cold heart wasn’t palatable enough to entertain modern audiences. This marks the end of an era in which high-budget projects could also be high art.