Yesterday, director David Fincher made the big casting announcement for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – the part of a lifetime, the role of Lisbeth Salander went to a virtually unknown actress named Rooney Mara. Rooney beat out pretty much every young actress aged 18 to 29, basically. Because every girl wanted this part – even though Emma Watson claimed she didn’t cut her hair for the part, you know she wanted it. Ellen Page wanted it so badly that the Oscar-nominated actress did a screen test. Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart were also mentioned heavily. One actress that I never heard much about was Scarlett Johansson, however. But according to the NY Daily News, ScarJo really, really wanted the part. Unfortunately, Scar’s boobs are getting the blame for this casting pwn.

The search for Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander is over – and this time it’s curvaceous Scarlett Johansson’s career that’s been thrown for a loop. Sony Pictures Entertainment said Monday that Rooney Mara, great-granddaughter of the late New York Giants owner Wellington Mara, would play Salander in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” director David Fincher’s adaptation of the first book in Larsson’s smash “Millennium” trilogy.

Mara snagged the coveted role from a field of heavyweights and bright newcomers, reportedly including Natalie Portman, Ellen Page (who did her own screen test), “Alice in Wonderland” star Mia Wasikowska, “Sucker Punch’s” Emily Browning and Johansson.

The “Iron Man 2” actress and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, were on vacation in Austria Monday when the announcement was made. What is certain is that Johansson will be disappointed she lost the plum part. She wanted the role “bad,” as we reported Monday, even though our source says, “Scarlett was freaked out by the nude scenes” in the script.

The source adds, however, that Fincher “was willing to work around that if she got the part.”

(A rep for Fincher did not respond to questions by deadline, and a spokesman for Sony’s Columbia Pictures, which is producing the film, also had no comment.)

But as fans of Larsson’s trilogy observe, even if Fincher decided to go with a name actress to play Lisbeth, Johansson’s Lamborghini lines would have posed a problem – at least for the first movie.

As one avid reader points out, Lisbeth is “skinny” and “flat as a board” in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” but gets breast augmentation in the second novel. Johansson would have needed cutting-edge visual effects, or at least a whole lot of gaffer’s tape.

The svelte Mara doesn’t appear to have the same impediments. As veteran movie-industry reporter Mike Fleming noted in a Deadline Hollywood post Monday, Mara was not only Fincher’s “first choice” for the part. She had also previously worked with the director on the hotly anticipated movie about Facebook, “The Social Network.” Fleming said Mara is “a strong match,” the “right age” and “looks like Salander.”

Fleming also reported that signing Mara “will amount to a formality, because the actress essentially agreed to terms when she and other young actresses signed on to tests that Fincher and producer Scott Rudin have conducted over the past several weeks.”

Mara’s deal reportedly includes an option for the two remaining books in Larsson’s trilogy: “The Girl Who Played With Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.”
Sorry, Scarlett, that’s got to sting.

[From The NYDN]

Okay, ScarJo was never right, will never be right, could never be right for Lisbeth, ever. And it’s not just about her boobs, for God’s sake. Now, I actually like a few ScarJo films, and I think she’s got some gifts as an actress (she’s not as talented as she thinks, but whatever). But she’s absolutely horrible at playing “smart” on camera. Have you noticed that? She’s only good at playing dumb characters, or self-involved characters, or slutty characters. She never plays the smartest character in the room, ever, and that’s what Lisbeth Salander is. I look at ScarJo’s face and all I see is “vacant”. Lisbeth is never vacant. And I do not think highly of ScarJo if she thought she was right for Lisbeth. That just shows how dumb she really is.