The English-language remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has been placed on Sony’s release calendar for December 21, 2011. The studio reports it is continuing talks with Daniel Craig to star.

Dragon is the first installment of author Stieg Larsson’s hit Swedish trilogy, which was adapted first by Danish director Niels Arden Oplev. And then, it became one of the year’s top specialty movies, grossing $12.1 million. Sony’s version will be directed by David Fincher from a script by Steven Zaillian.

Craig would play a disgraced financial journalist hired to investigate the case of a missing woman. Dragon’s title role has yet to be cast and Variety speculates that Sony will go with an unknown.