Millennium series

The Millennium series is a series of bestselling novels originally written in Swedish by the late Stieg Larsson. The primary characters in the series are Lisbeth Salander, an intelligent, eccentric woman in her twenties with a photographic memory and poor social skills, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and editor of a magazine called Millennium. Blomkvist, the character, has a history similar to Larsson, the author. Originally, ten books in total were planned, but only three were completed:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor, literally Men Who Hate Women) (2005)
• The Girl Who Played with Fire (Flickan som lekte med elden, literally The Girl Who Played with the Fire) (2006)
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (Luftslottet som sprängdes, literally The Castle Made Of Air Which Was Blown Up) (2007)

Origins and publication

When Larsson was 15 years old, he witnessed the gang rape of a girl, which led to his lifelong abhorrence of violence and abuse against women. The author never forgave himself for failing to help the girl, which inspired the themes of sexual violence against women in his books.^{[1] [2]}

Larsson was also influenced by the murders of three women (Melissa Nordell, Fadime Sahindal, and Catrine Da Costa) in writing the Millennium series. All three women were killed either at the hands of men or as victims of honor crimes. To Larsson, there was no difference and the "systematic violence" against women highly affected and inspired him to take action against these crimes through his writing. Eva Gabrielsson, Larsson's longtime partner, wrote that "the trilogy allowed Stieg to denounce everyone he loathed for their cowardice, their irresponsibility, and their opportunism: couch-potato activists, sunny-day warriors, fair-weather skippers who pick and choose their causes; false friends who used him to advance their own careers; unscrupulous company heads and shareholders who wangle themselves huge bonuses... Seen in this light, Stieg couldn't have had any better therapy for what ailed his soul than writing his novels." ^[3]

Larsson submitted the manuscripts for all three volumes in the series to two Swedish publishers, with Norstedts Förlag accepting the manuscripts for publication. Norstedts commissioned Steve Murray, under the pen-name of Reg Keeland, to undertake the English translation.^[4] Larsson tried to get British publishers to accept his book, but was turned down until Christopher Maclehose bought the global English language rights of the book for Quercus, a small London publisher.^[5][6] Alfred A. Knopf bought the U.S. rights to the books after Larsson's death in 2004.^[7]

By May 2010, 27 million copies have been sold worldwide.^[8]

Unfinished material

Larsson wrote about three-quarters of a fourth novel before his sudden death in November 2004. His partner, Eva Gabrielsson, is in possession of the notebook computer with the manuscript but does not own the rights to Larsson's work. This is because Larsson, in an attempt to protect Gabrielsson from the people he was investigating in real life (Swedish Neo-Nazis and racists), never married and never wrote his will. Thus, at his death, it is his family that ended with the succession.^[9] Outlines or manuscripts for one or two more books may exist.^[8][10]

Film adaptations

Swedish films

The Swedish film production company Yellow Bird has produced film versions of the Millennium Trilogy, co-produced with The Danish film production company Nordisk Film and television company,^[11] which were released in Scandinavia in 2009. In 2010, the films were shown in an extended version of approximately 180 minutes per film as a six-part miniseries (each film divided in two parts of 90 minutes) on Swedish television. This version was released on July 14, 2010 on DVD and Blu-ray in three separate sets and on November 24, 2010 as a Complete Millennium Trilogy box set with an extra disc.

Originally, only the first film was meant for a theatrical release, with the following ones conceived as TV movies, but this was changed in the wake of the tremendous success of the first film. The first film was directed by Niels Arden Oplev and the next two by Daniel Alfredson, while the screenplays of the first two were adapted by Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, and the last one by Ulf Rydberg and Jonas Frykberg. All three films feature Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander.

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, released on February 25, 2009.
• The Girl Who Played with Fire, released on September 18, 2009.
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, released on November 27, 2009.

American films

Yellow Bird, Relativity Media, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, and BBC Films have partnered with Sony Pictures to produce an American adaptation of the trilogy. The films are to be written by Steven Zaillian, directed by David Fincher and produced by Scott Rudin, with Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander. Momentum Pictures will return to distribute the films along with Optimum Releasing (first film), Entertainment Film Distributors (second film), and E1 Entertainment (third film).

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, planned for release in December 2011
• The Girl Who Played with Fire, planned for release in 2012
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest , planned for release in 2013

References

1. ^ James, Susan (2010-08-05). "Stieg Larsson Silent as Real-Life Lisbeth Raped". ABS News. http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/stieg-larsson-guilt-gang-rape-lisbeth-fueled-millennium/story?id=11324859. Retrieved 2011-06-06. 
2. ^ Penny, Laurie (2010-09-05). "Girls, tattoos and men who hate women". New Statesman. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/09/women-girl-real-violence. Retrieved 2010-10-19. 
3. ^ Gabrielsson, Eva, Marie-Françoise Colombani, and Linda Coverdale. "There Are Things I Want You to Know" about Stieg Larsson and Me. New York: Seven Stories, 2011.
4. ^ Acocella, Joan. "Man of Mystery". New Yorker (1/10/2011), Vol. 86, Issue 43
5. ^ Clark, Nick (2010) The publishing house that Stieg Larsson built The Independent, 6 August 2010, accessed 10 March 2010
6. ^ Profile: Stieg Larsson: Even his early death became a big thriller The Sunday Times, 27 September 2009, accessed 10 March 2010
7. ^ "American Readers, Waiting Impatiently For 'The Girl'" NPR (April 5, 2010). Retrieved February 5, 2011.
8. ^ ^{a b} McGrath, Charles (23 May 2010). "The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson". The New York Times Magazine. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23Larsson-t.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all. 
9. ^ Gabrielsson, Eva. "Biography Eva Gabrielsson". Newest happenings in E.G.'s life.. Steiglarsson.com. http://www.stieglarsson.com/biography-eva-gabrielsson. Retrieved 9 June 2011. 
10. ^ "The Fourth Book". http://www.stieglarsson.com/the-4th-book. Retrieved 2010-04-07. 
11. ^ "Yellow Bird Puts SEK 106m Millennium Project In Production". nordiskfilmogtvfond. 2007-11-02. http://www.nordiskfilmogtvfond.com/news_story.php?cid=458&sid=10&ptid=4. Retrieved 2009-09-22.