Now that, folks, is happy news.  To this day I can’t pick up a copy of Stephen King’s Needful Things without reading all of Leland Gaunt’s dialogue in Max Von Sydow’s voice.  The man is easily one of the creepiest actors in Hollywood, so to see him joining the cast of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is just huge.

He’ll be stepping in to play Henrik Vanger, who in the original novel, dispatched journalist Mikael Blomkvist to find his niece.

Seriously, just fantastic news–Von Sydow has decades of practice in creepy settings so you know he’ll handle the role of Vanger just fine.  In fact, if anything, that’s got me looking forward to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s remake all the more.  Add in Stellan Skarsgard as Martin Vanger, and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth, and the news just keeps getting happier.

You can catch this one in theaters December 21, 2011–though since they’re still in casting I’d look for this date to change.