The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Niels Arden Oplev’s film, has single handedly driven ticket sales in Denmark over the first quarter of the year. The movie accounted for 20% ofall ticket sales in the first three months of 2009 and led to a 3% rise compared to the same period last year.

The film, based on the Stieg Larsson novel, has rung up ticket sales of more than $25m, making it the first Scandinavian film to break into the Top 10 on theScreen International Box Office chart covering the whole of Europe.

The success of the film means all three films from Larsson’s Millennium triology will now released theatrically. The decision was announced by the project’s main financier, Swedish public broadcaster STV, last month.

The Danish Film Institute predicts a solid box office performance throughout the year due to the potential success of a string of local films and international releases including Harry Potter 6, Night at the Museum 2, Terminator 4, Ice Age 3 and the 3D titles.

The top five of Scandinavian films in terms of ticket sales over the quarter are The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which has sold 738,000 tickets, children’s film Karla and Katrine at 169,117, Aching Heart is third place selling 128,473 tickets with The Escape on 93,640 and When Heaven Falls reaching 10,187.

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