A Hollywood adaptation of Swedish sleeper hit Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor), which grossed over $100 in Europe earlier this year, is in the works after Sony Pictures purchased the remake rights from production company Yellow Bird Pictures.

Based on Stieg Larsson’s international bestseller by the same name, the original film is the second installment of the “Millennium” trilogy planned by Yellow Bird Pictures and expected to be remade into a film by Sony Pictures. Preceded by the The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009) and to be followed with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, also based on Larsson’s novels which have sold more than 22 million copies since the trilogy was launched posthumously in 2005, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has huge international potential, Yellow Bird Pictures’ Managing Director Mikael Walleen says.

Academy Award winner Steven Zaillian, the man who wrote Schindler’s List (1993) and Hannibal (2001), is said to be in negotiations to work in the remake’s screenplay. Scott Rudin, responsible for the English-language adaptation of No Country for Old Men is likely to be producing the film.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tells the story of Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a disgraced business writer, and Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a socially troubled hacker:

The 16-year old girl Harriet Vanger disappeared without a trace on September 29, 1966. Nearly forty years later, journalist Mikael Blomqvist gets an unusual assignment. He is contacted by the industrial leader Henrik Vanger, who wants him to write the history of the Vanger family. The family chronicle is just a cover for the real assignment: to find out about what really happened to Harriet. Mikael, recently indicted and convicted on counts of slander, feels that he needs a break from his work on the Millennium magazine and takes the job. He gets help from the young and troubled computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. Together the odd couple starts to dig in the past of the Vanger family and discovers a darker and bloodier history than they ever could have imagined.

With a Hollywood budget secured and no doubt a flurry of special effects planned, we can only hope Sony decides to go with Noomi Rapace for the film’s lead role as this may actually result in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake having at least some semblance to the original.

In the meantime, keep your eyes open for our upcoming review of the thriller’s Swedish version, to be released in the next few days.