Carey Mulligan to play Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

British beauty Carey Mulligan has pipped Twilight star Kristen Stewart to land the role of punk heroine, Lisbeth Salander in the Hollywood adaptation of the best-selling thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

British beauty Carey Mulligan has pipped Twilight star Kristen Stewart to land the role of punk heroine, Lisbeth Salander in the Hollywood adaptation of the best-selling thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The 24 year-old has enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame after her starring role in An Education and is now set to play the heroine of Stieg Larsson's hugely popular Millennium trilogy on screen.

Both David Fincher and the family of the late Swedish author, think she is right for the role but a final decision has yet to be made, reported Daily Mail online.

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Producers are reported to have looked at almost 5,000 possible candidates to play the bisexual computer hacker, including Stewart and Natalie Portman. As for Mulligan, she had made it clear that she would love to take on the role.

"I am obsessed with those books. I would love to do them. I am not going to lie about that. I would love to play Lisbeth Salander," she had said in a recent interview.

If she is selected, it is expected the deal will be in the region of USD 16 million for the three films covering Larsson's trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest.

It could make her one of Hollywood's highest paid actresses. The franchise is hugely popular and has sold more the one million copies in the UK and in excess of 25 million worldwide. The story follows Salander a bisexual private investigator and her curious relationship with a struggling journalist.