David Fincher remembers 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'

After over a decade, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo's director David Fincher still owns the success and failures of his project.

Speaking to the masterclass conversation at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, the filmmaker said, "We did it the way that we could," Fincher continued. "And when people said it cost too much for what the return on investment was, I said, 'Okay, swing and a miss.'"

The 60-year-old also added that he accepted the poor performance of the film at the box office and tended to look at the brighter side of the movie.

"I was offered Dragon Tattoo long before the first movie was made and was in the middle of something else," adding, "And I was like, 'Lesbian hacker on a motorcycle? I don't think so.'"

Later the book series was translated by Swedish author Stieg Larsson in English in 2008, which led the book to become an international bestseller.

The thing went on to be a huge deal, and it came back around," the director explained. "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?"