'Twilight's' Catherine Hardwicke to Direct 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' Star in Biopic

COLOGNE, Germany -- Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke will direct Swedish star Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) in an as yet untitled biopic of 60s Swedish diva and pop culture icon Anita Lindblom.

our editor recommends

Catherine Hardwicke: ‘Thank the Lord’ I Walked Away From ‘Twilight’

Forget 'Twilight,' Catherine Hardwicke is going over the river and through the woods

Rapace, who next appears alongside Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, will play Lindblom while her husband actor Ola Rapace takes the role of Bosse Hogberg, the Swedish and European boxing champion whose whirlwind romance with and turbulent marriage to Lindblom were fodder for European tabloids for years.

The Rapaces have been developing the Lindblom project for several years, well before The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo made Noomi Rapace an international star.

Ola Rapace has been training for the past four years to be fit enough to play the boxing champ.

Peter Birro wrote the screenplay to the film, which Helena Danielsson of Hepp Film is producing. Shooting is set to start in Sweden this autumn. Nordisk has Scandinavian rights to the film and plans a territorial release there in winter 2012.