Sony Pictures and producer Scott Rudin in talks to make Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series

It was only a matter of time before Hollywood scooped up the rights to Stieg Larsson’s best-selling trio of crime thrillers, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire; and the yet-to-be-released The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. Sony and producer Scott Rudin announced today that they are in final discussions to option the series that has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon. (Anne Thompson first broke the news here.)

The studio and its producer intend to produce all three films and will make them with the Swedish production company Yellow Bird Films. (The Swedish company has already produced and released a film based on the first book, titled in most of Europe Men Who Hate Women, which was a box-office hit to the tune of $100 million. That foreign-language version will be released by Music Box here in the U.S. in March.) The novels center on Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist, and Lisbeth Salander, a bi-sexual, emotionally disturbed computer hacker with a photographic memory, who have come together through unlikely circumstances to investigate various crimes. Larsson, a Swedish journalist and political activist not unlike his protagonist Blomkvist, died before any of his books were published and his estate has been embroiled in its own legal battles between Larsson’s long-term girlfriend and his family members. You can find a detailed account of the family drama in an LA Times article here.

It will be interesting to see who they cast as Salandar, a choice role for many up-and-coming actresses. Both Kristen Stewart and Ellen Page could do great things with the part. Who do you think should play this fascinating character?