Banijay & Sony In Rights Dispute Over ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ TV Series
Banijay and Sony have entered a rights dispute over Sky’s new Girl with the Dragon Tattoo TV series.
Deadline understands that Banijay last night filed arbitration with Sony just a day after the splashy new series from Steve Lightfoot and Angela LaManna was announced.
It is understood the dispute revolves around Banijay believing the TV and film rights to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy have reverted back to them since The Girl in the Spider’s Web movie aired in 2018. Sony had previously optioned the rights to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2009.
Banijay believes the new Sky project, which is being produced by Sony-owned The Crown indie Left Bank, is therefore in breach, and it has filed arbitration. The pair will either look to settle the dispute or it will move to a court case.
Banijay-owned Yellow Bird produced the original Swedish Millennium Trilogy movies, which starred Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist. Yellow Bird then partnered with Sony’s Columbia Pictures, MGM and Scott Rudin Productions for David Fincher’s 2011 English language film starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, and the 2018 follow-up Girl with the Spider’s Web with Claire Foy.
Banijay and Sony declined comment. Deadline has reached out to Sky for comment.
Casting has not yet been set for the TV version, which is described as a “bold and contemporary reimagining” and is currently being shopped to the U.S. The neo-noir book tells the story of lead Mikael Blomkvist’s investigation to find out what happened to a girl from a wealthy family who had disappeared 40 years earlier. He recruits the help of Lisbeth Salander, a computer hacker. The movies did big business for Sony and the TV version has been in the ether for a long while.
This isn’t the first time the popular Scandi IP has caused a dispute. Larsson died suddenly in 2004 and the trilogy was published posthumously at which time the rights reverted to his blood relatives, which his partner of 32 years, Eva Gabrielsson, took issue with and took to court.
Banijay has been in the news plenty this week after news emerged that it is in talks to merge with The Traitors super-producer All3Media.
