It's that time again, time for a glorious new Empire cover to be unveiled. And this month we're going dark and twisted with David Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara going front and centre.

The film is, as you all know, the adaptation of the first of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, with Rooney Mara as hacker Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist. David Fincher's directing, and the cast also includes the not-inconsiderable likes of Christopher Plummer, Robin Wright, Stellan Skarsgard, Joely Richardson, Julian Sands, Embeth Davidtz and Geraldine James.

Our Nev Pierce interviewed all those involved and visited the set to bring you all the latest on the film, but here's just a taster of what Fincher had to say about Salander herself.

"There were discussions early on where people were like, 'She's a superhero!' And you go, 'No, she's not. Superheroes live in a world of good and evil, and she's far more complex than a superhero. She's been compromised. She's been subjugated. She's been marginalised. She's been swept into the gutter and she's had a part in it. She dresses like trash because she's someone who has been betraued and hurt so badly, by forces beyond her control, that she's just decided to be refuse. She can sit anywhere she wants on the bus, because nobody wants to deal with her."

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is out on Boxing Day here, which should help counter any excess jollity you've experienced over Christmas, while at the same time being one of the better films of the year. The November issue of Empire hits stores on Thursday.