By Jay A. Fernandez

I, along with others, have been tracking Stieg Larsson’s Hollywood prospects for a while now. Despite rights issues that have dragged out the process, it looks like Sony is finally closing in on a comprehensive deal for the English-language film rights to Larsson’s popular crime-thriller trilogy: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played With Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.”

(Full story here.)

King of literary-based films Scott Rudin (”Revolutionary Road,” “The Hours”) would produce, and Steve Zaillian, who’s not been too shabby in the adaptation department either (“Schindler’s List,” “Hannibal,” “A Civil Action”), is mulling the assignment.

Larsson’s Millennium Series has already been spun into a trilogy of films, with different directors, in Sweden that have done incredibly well. And the appeal of the gritty, corruption-laden books have been on the lips of many a thriller-lit fan in the U.S. this year, ever since Random House published them Stateside.

That Larsson’s stories were informed by his years as an investigative journalist and activist — sadly, ended upon his death in 2004 — has invested the pulpy material with an extra frisson. That, and the fact that these manuscripts were only discovered after his fatal heart attack.

The entire package has an appeal similar to that of the “Red Riding” trilogy, which was spun from a series of gritty novels by David Peace into a trilogy of films in the U.K. scripted by Tony Grisoni (”Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”). I saw the first one up in Telluride at the annual festival in September, and it’s fantastically cynical and labyrinthine in a way that fans of the perfect “Chinatown” would appreciate.

The Peace books are being re-adapted for American audiences, too. By the team of — wait for it…

Sony and Zaillian (plus producer Ridley Scott).