Hopes for The Girl Who Played With Fire, a potential follow-up to David Fincher's English-language The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, slowed considerably after the first movie performed only decently at the box office.
But star Daniel Craig says he hasn't given up on the possibility of a new instalment - and in fact hopes to persuade the director to return.
Fincher, who has a range of projects in development, has been publicly noncommittal about returning to the franchise, which follows a Swedish-language art-house hit. The director has never made a sequel in his long career.
Though well-received by critics and fans, Dragon Tattoo, Sony-MGM's 2011 adaptation of Stieg Larsson's bestseller, grossed $233 million worldwide. That's a respectable but hardly blockbuster result for the R-rated film - and prompted an MGM executive to say earlier this year that the company had lost a small amount of money on the film and would likely participate in a new movie only if it was made at a lower budget.
Sony has been waiting on a new Fire script from writer Steven Zallian; there has been no recent development movement.
Larsson's book on which the film would be based, the second in the so-called Millennium Trilogy, centres on Craig's Mikael Blomqvist and Rooney Mara's Lisbeth Salander investigating a sex-trafficking ring.
