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The fourth book in the Millennium series created by Stieg Larsson will be "a big success", with writers clamouring to write a fifth, publisher Christopher MacLehose [pictured] has said.
Earlier this month Quercus announced it would publish a new book in the series, to be written by Swedish author David Lagercrantz, in August 2015. World English language rights were acquired by Quercus from Norstedts and Moggliden, the Stieg Larsson estate in the hands of Larsson's father and brother.
In an interview with the BBC, MacLehose, publisher of Quercus imprint MacLehose Press, has now said: "Stieg Larsson had mapped out, sketched out 10 novels in the Millennium series. My conviction is that what we may call Millennium four will, given the author involved, I think that will be widely read. I think it will be a big success.
"I hope it will be a Swedish film, maybe even an American film.
"And I think that when it has worked, a great many writers will put their hands up and say: 'I would love to write Millennium Five.'"
MacLehose also spoke about the creation of character "brands", saying: "If an author who is fortunate enough to find a character so strong that we can talk in terms of brand, then the marketplace will develop and nourish and cherish that character until they are a brand that everybody knows, until people are buying the T-shirts and so forth... Is it a James Bond book or an Ian Fleming book? There's a case I think where the character outstripped the author and as we know lived much longer, is still alive, younger than ever."
Lagercrantz co-authored I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Penguin), the 2013 autobiography of the Swedish footballer, and has also written fiction, with Quercus describing him as an author who "has in his writing constantly sought out odd characters and complex geniuses".
The Millennium trilogy follows computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Larsson died in 2004, before he saw his trilogy of novels, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, become an international publishing phenomenon.
The books were made into a series of Swedish films starring Noomi Rapace, before David Fincher directed an English-language version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.