Like you and your mom and that girl sitting next to you on the subway, I've been reading Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its two sequels, and I'm getting very, very curious about how David Fincher's English-language film adaptation will turn out. There are some very basic questions that have yet to be answered-- are they going to change the characters' names to something more American-ized? Are they going to keep all the corporate intrigue stuff?-- but Sony chief Amy Pascal is at least giving us a few details in her expansive interview with The Wrap.

First of all, despite the rumors you may have heard about Carey Mulligan or a South African rap star being cast in the lead role, Lisbeth Salander-- or whatever the American character will be named-- has not yet been cast. "We are going to do a global search on her. Every actress in the world wants it," Pascal promised. "It’s the greatest character for a girl since I-don’t-know-what."

And even though you probably weren't worried about getting a sanitized thriller, given the dark subject matter and the fact that David "Seven" Fincher is directing, Pascal vowed to keep the grittier elements of the novel intact:

We’re doing the book. That’s why we hired David Fincher. We’re going to really do this, in all their glory. Otherwise why do it? They’re very R-rated movies. It’s the shock of what’s really going on underneath the surface of society. If you don’t actually make good on that, you haven’t told the story.

She also confirmed that they're aiming for a Christmas 2011 release date for the first one, and that Fincher plans to direct all three installments of the adaptations-- though of course, that will depend on how the first one goes on both sides. Basically this interview serves to reassure fans of the books that the crazy, fucked-up shit we loved reading about will be intact, while still leaving us confused about how exactly this will work on film.