Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has been adapted to screenplay and will release worldwide in theaters Dec. 21, 2011. Current James Bond star Daniel Craig will star in the film, along with Rooney Mara from the upcoming film The Social Network.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo will be the first film of the series in The Millennium Trilogy, which has sold more than 40-million copies in the U.S. The other two films, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest, will begin shooting next month in Sweden.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is directed by David Fincher, and the screenplay is written by Steve Zaillian. The film will be released under Columbia Pictures and is being produced by Scott Rudin, Cean Chaffin, Ole Sondberg and Soren Staermose.

Could the James Bond film franchise possibly be finished? The new Entertainment Weekly magazine (Aug. 13, 2010) suggests that the James Bond franchise could be finished, along with Daniel Craig as agent 007. The article says Craig has already moved on after the 23rd Bond film was recently cancelled, signing up to do a new film called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

But Bond films have had their financial troubles before, and long breaks between films are something Bond fans are no strangers to. E-Weekly quotes a former MGM exec who suggests the studio sells its stock in the Bond films. A comment from one reader says Craig is no good as Bond, and that Pierce Brosnan should be brought back.

Maybe the studio who makes the next Bond film should just cut the budget for special effects, high profile actors, and stick to good script writing. Early Bond films hold up to this day because of quality writing, not overly done CGI. Brosnan’s ridiculous glacial parasailing in Die Another Day (2002) was possibly the moment when Bond films ”jumped the shark.”