On an unrelated note, Rooney is currently in Japan promoting “Dragon Tattoo” – pics will be up soon!

Rooney Mara Takes Lead In Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Side Effects’

In her first lead role since her Oscar-nominated turn in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Rooney Mara has just committed to starring in Side Effects, the Steven Soderbergh-directed thriller. Mara will replace Blake Lively in a film that also stars Jude Law, Channing Tatum and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Mara plays Emily Hawkins, a sexy but unsettled young woman who is taking serious amounts of prescription drugs to deal with anxiety and depression surrounding the pending release of her husband from prison. Her husband has been in prison for three years and after taking a new medicine she was prescribed, she unknowingly murders her husband and stands trial for murder.

Scott Z. Burns wrote the script, and Open Road will distribute in the U.S. It looked like Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures would be financier, but I have been hearing that is a bit shaky. Greg Jacobs and Lorenzo di Bonaventura are producing. Shooting begins in April.

Since her breakout performance as Lisbeth Salander, Mara has been courted for several major roles, including the female lead in the Kathryn Bigelow film about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. That film clashed with her promotional schedule on Dragon Tattoo. Mara is currently in Tokyo promoting the film. She is repped by WME and attorney Neil Meyer.

Source: Deadline

Sony Going Ahead With ‘Dragon Tattoo’ Sequels Despite Underperforming Box Office

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures is not known for risky moves. So all through the holidays rival studio execs were predicting that Amy Pascal et al would not go forward with the 2nd and 3rd film installments of Steig Larsson’s bestselling Millennium-trilogy The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. That opinion was based on the mediocre opening for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Sure its domestic debut was significantly behind M:I4 and Sherlock 2, but it’s R-rated and both of those are PG-13. Then overseas grosses, expected to be huge, began trickling in underwhelming. GWDT opened only 3rd in the UK, and disappointing in Asia, and “not as good as hoped for” in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Now I’ve learned that Sony Pictures is indeed going forward with The Girl Who Played With Fire already written by Steve Zallian, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest which Zallian is penning. Studio chief Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin have not yet locked in David Fincher as director. But they’re looking to start shooting #2 by the end of this year/beginning of next. Overseas Sony now expects GWDT to do over $200M — so $300M all in globally. “And that’s a really good number,” the Sony exec told me hopefully. But one mogul counters, “The surprising part is that Sony is not waiting to see if the movie works overseas before going forward with the sequels. I would have.”

Right now Dragon Tattoo has amassed a $76.8M domestic cume and should get very close to $100M because it’s holding better than any other holiday movie. Sony and rival studios believe the movie’s box office was hurt by that long brutal rape scene not appropriate for a Christmas release. (“It’s a notch too dark for that window,” one studio chief tells me. Agrees a top Sony exec, “It was too cocky of us. We might think about that next time.”) Counting against GWDT was that the Hollywood version of the bestselling book had already been made into a Swedish film widely distributed beginning in 2009. Plus Zallian and Fincher changed the first book’s ending. As for book #2, its challenge is that title character Lisbeth Salander played by Rooney Mara) isn’t much in it. But Sony has changed that, too, and Zallian’s script places her front and center again.

Source: Deadline

Best Actress
Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)
runners-up – tied: Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) and Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki (The Tree Of Life)
runners-up – tied: Jeff Cronenweth (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and Janusz Kaminski (War Horse)

Best Scene – favorite movie scene or sequence
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: the opening titles sequence
runner-up: The Artist: the finale

Furstenberg already has her next project lined up, “Emanuel And The Truth About Fishes,” a story about teenage girl who becomes obsessed with a neighbor who looks like her dead mother. And while it was previously reported that she would reteam with Mara on the film, both the director and actress decided that she was too old for the part of a 17 year-old. But the project pushes on and is expected to shoot in 2012.

Source: The Playlist

Still in the rumored/not official yet stage in terms of Rooney’s upcoming projects are Kathryn Bigelow’s “Kill Bin Laden” and Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves” with Paul Dano.

Stars of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Help Brad Pitt Build Homes for Families in Need

New York City – Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, stars of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, are making room on the red carpet for two fans at the movie’s premiere in New York City on December 14. Fans of the movie can bid on and win two tickets to this season’s hottest premiere — walk the red carpet, see the stars of the film and enjoy the very first look at this highly anticipated adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s literary blockbuster.

Bidding is open now and closes on Sunday at 4pm PST: www.ebay.com/makeitright.

Adding to the already immense anticipation for the film, Columbia Pictures has been stoking audience interest with dramatic extended trailers and clips from the movie. The energy and excitement at the
December 14 premiere promises to be electric.

Columbia Pictures and the film’s stars, Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, generously donated the tickets. All proceeds from the online auction will benefit Make It Right, Brad Pitt’s foundation to build safe, sustainable and affordable homes for New Orleans’ families who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. Make It Right also works with community groups in Newark, Kansas City and other areas around the country to provide energy-efficient, affordable housing for
disadvantaged youth and low-income families.

Best Film: Hugo
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
Best Original Screenplay: Will Reiser, 50/50
Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Best Animated Feature: Rango
Breakthrough Performance: Felicity Jones, Like Crazy
Breakthrough Performance: Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Debut Director: J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Best Ensemble: The Help
Spotlight Award: Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Shame, X-Men: First Class)
NBR Freedom of Expression: Crime After Crime
NBR Freedom of Expression: Pariah
Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation
Best Documentary: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Special Achievement in Filmmaking: The Harry Potter Franchise – A Distinguished Translation from Book
to Film

Top Films
(in alphabetical order)

The Artist
The Descendants
Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
The Ides of March
J. Edgar
Tree of Life
War Horse

(Los Angeles, CA) November 2, 2011 – FilmNation Entertainment is continuing their relationship with acclaimed director Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, The Thin Red Line) and handling international sales and distribution on his next two films. LAWLESS will star Ryan Gosling (Drive, The Ides of March) and boasts a supporting cast that includes Academy Award Winners Christian Bale (The Dark Knight, The Flowers of War), Cate Blanchett (The Hobbit, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) plus Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network) and Haley Bennett (Marley & Me, The Haunting of Molly Hartley).

Rooney Mara, who has a pivotal role in the Facebook movie The Social Network and plays the lead in the English-language version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, had been in early negotiations to play cold-hearted Estella, but there was a scheduling conflict, so she’s not doing it.

Source: The Daily Mail