David Fincher‘s upcoming adaptation of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is one of the biggest question marks of the fall. Will it be an Oscar contender, a franchise movie for adults, or is Fincher just seizing the opportunity again to take advantage of a major studio to make something a bit more subversive than they were expecting? We were not fans of the original Swedish films so there should be plenty of room for improvement here, though the jury is still out from the eight minutes of footage we saw the other night.
One thing we are sold on is the film’s marketing campaign, which so far has been every bit as impressive as last year’s indelible push for “The Social Network.” The teaser trailer (first “leaked” by the studio) never fails to give us goosebumps every time we see it in the theater and the teaser poster shot by Jean-Baptiste Mondino and designed by Playlist favorite, graphic artist Neil Kellerhouse, is every bit as striking.
We spoke to Kellerhouse a few months ago about the controversial ‘Tattoo’ artwork and whether he was surprised Fincher was able to get away with the nudity on the poster. He said, “He’s been true to his personality, he’s unwavering that way. I don’t think there’s any surprises at all. He was very up front about it the whole time.” He also said he hoped to be working on the final artwork for the film and here we have our first look at some of that work. Kellerhouse said he creates sometimes hundreds of images for a film before settling on a final look with the director so while this isn’t an official poster, it is a damn cool image. The image, which you can see below, debuted on the “unofficial” Tumblr site for the film, Mouth Taped Shut, along with some behind-the-scenes and other odds and sods.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” opens on December 21st.