It looks like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo‘s lukewarm $100 million worldwide opening will not affect Sony’s decision to give the go-ahead to the next installment in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire.

According to Deadline (via Slashfilm), the second book in Stieg Larsson’s milennium trilogy to get the Hollywood treatment, but will it, like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, be helmed by David Fincher?

What we do know: It is currently being written by Steven Zaillian (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Schindler’s List and is tentatively schedule to begin filming in late 2012 or early 2013. The Deadline story also makes mention of a departure from the hit novel, which Slashfilm has illustrated below:

The most interesting bit in Deadline’s story is that Sony and Zaillian are making some changes to The Girl Who Played With Fire in order to make Lisbeth Salander a more prominent character. The original novel and film feature plotting that keeps Salander apart from Mikael Blomkvist through much of the story – I would guess that Zaillian is changing things to bring those characters together for more of the tale.

Changes were made to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, too, but I don’t think those were a huge reason for the underwhelming box office. That is more likely attributable to the opening date, competition from other films and a general suspicion towards a remake of a recent, well-known foreign film.

So what do you think? Do you think the changes are necessary? Are you hoping that David Fincher returns to the sequel?