Bond is dead, Blomkvist lives

The famous Hollywood studio that's the home of the 007 films is in trouble. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has huge debts and the "B" word is in the air. But it's not "Bond", it's "bankruptcy". Sam Mendes had signed a contract to direct the next film in the series, which revived spectacularly in 2006 with Daniel Craig as the new Bond in Casino Royale, but because no one knows what's going to happen to MGM, the film has been put on hold.

"You Only Live Twice" is the title of a classic 007 story. Daniel Craig, however, might only live once, so he's just confirmed that he's taking on the role of Mikael Blomkvist in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", a Sony Pictures film of the first book in the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. The journalist Blomkvist joins up with Lisbeth Salander, a deeply troubled computer genius, as they investigate a string of bizarre murders.

Interestingly, news of Daniel Craig's career move came as Amazon.com announced that Stieg Larsson had become the first writer to sell more than one million e-books in its Kindle Store. Getting a million people to read anything, let alone a million e-books by a dead Swedish author, is a remarkable achievement in these times of texting and tweeting,
 
By the way, if you haven't read any of the Larsson stories, let me tell you that they're 40 percent sex, 40 percent violence and 20 percent alcohol. In other words, they're just perfect for an ex-Bond.

Skål, Mikael and Lisbeth! See you soon.