The undisputed worst performance of 2010 so far is
Rooney Mara's completely bland, non-descriptive and non-transparent version of Nancy in Platinum Dunes' remake of
A Nightmare on Elm Street - so I'm less than enthused that
David Fincher has cast her as Lisbeth Salander in his version of
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. A role that we shouldn't forget has been circled by every big name/small time actress working today. Basically if you weren't linked with the Salander role and you were an actress of a certain age - you should probably fire your agent. At least three huge names were desperate to play the tough bixsexual computer hacker - a heroine I guess that speaks out to female readers by the amount of copies sold;
Natalie Portman (who tried to buy the books before Paramount so she could star in the film)
Ellen Page (who picked up a camera and filmed her own test, so desperate for someone to listen to her)
Scarlett Johansson (who made a last ditch effort to win the role and impressed Paramount's exec with a screen-test but they stuck my their director's call who wanted an unknown). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH5em6ZP5bg But hey maybe I'm wrong about Mara. I wasn't the director of
Zodiac, Fight Club and
Se7en - and I haven't worked with her everyday on
The Social Network, so maybe she's not the lame duck actress that she's showcased in her work to date. Maybe she has got life, some charisma, some va va voom. Paramount's Tattoo shoots in the fall with Mara alongside
Daniel Craig, Robin Wright and
Stellan Skarsgaard. It'll be out next Christmas and will make a gazillion dollars, as will the two sequels that everyone (except Fincher) is signed up for, including screenwriter
Steve Zaillian (Schlinder's List, American Gangster).