Eight-part series is based on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium novels

Left Bank Pictures is producing a tentpole eight-part adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s best-selling novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Billed by the pay-TV giant as a “bold and contemporary” re-imagining, the adaptation is grounded in the characters and DNA of Larsson’s Millennium novels, which have sold more than 100 million copies globally.

The Punisher and Behind Her Eyes’ scribe Steve Lightfoot and The Haunting of Bly Manor writer Angela LaManna will pen the series and will exec produce alongside Andy Harries, Charlotte Moore and John Phillips for Left Bank Pictures, and Sam Hoyle for Sky.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo follows journalist Mikael Blomkvist and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander as they investigate the 40-year-old mystery of Harriet Vanger’s disappearance from the island owned by her powerful family. When the duo link Harriet’s disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from 40 years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history.

Production will commence in Lithuania in spring. The series marks the third telling of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 17 years; the first was a Swedish film adaptation starring Noomi Rapace as Salander, while Sony Pictures Entertainment made an English language film in 2011, directed by David Fincher and starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig.

It is the second major classic literary IP, which has been handed the big screen treatment, to be reworked by the pay-TV giant for TV, following Carnival’s high-end reimagination of The Day of the Jackal in 2024.

The series will be available on Sky in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Left Bank owner Sony Pictures Television will handle international distribution with pre-sale efforts already underway in the United States.