FADE IN:

INT. SWEDISH MANSION

YOUNG NOOMI RAPACE ROONEY MARA CLAIRE FOY and YOUNG SYLVIA HOEKS are playing CHESS when they are interrupted by their PSYCHO ASSHOLE CRIMELORD CHILD-ABUSING DAD.

PSYCHO ASSHOLE CRIMELORD CHILD-ABUSING DAD

Hey girls, come here, I’ve got a better game that you can play. It involves a vacuum cleaner and it’s called, “Is This a Sex Thing? This Feels Like It’s Probably a Sex Thing Somehow But Fuck If I Can Tell What’s Going On”.

YOUNG CLAIRE FOY

Fuck this! Come on, Sylvia, let us fragile twelve-year-olds jump out a third story window, then flee Dad’s army of murderous henchmen through a foot of snow while wearing a single layer of clothing.

YOUNG SYLVIA HOEKS

...Um, I think I’d rather not be dead within the next thirty seconds to twelve hours?

YOUNG CLAIRE FOY

WELL GO FUCK YOURSELF FOREVER THEN.

(leaps out window)

The movie does the same WEIRD-ASS BOND MOVIE CREDITS THING as THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, but instead of a SCREAMING DEATH-METAL LED ZEPPELIN COVER this time it has GENERIC MOVIE MUSIC, which doesn’t fit AT ALL.

INT. JERKWAD’S APARTMENT

RICH SHITSTAIN VOLKER BRUCH is BEATING HIS WIFE in their fancy apartment when suddenly the power goes out.

VOLKER BRUCH

Damnit. I guess I’ll go enter our security code... to end the blackout? Is it just me, or does that make no sense?

He goes and enters the code on the SECURITY PANEL and sure, the power goes back on as a result, why not. As the lights come back on they reveal now-grown-up CLAIRE FOY is in the room! She snares VOLKER in a SNARE.

VOLKER BRUCH

Holy fuck!! How did I not notice you breaking in and spending ten minutes setting up this elaborate trap? I was right in the next room the whole time!

CLAIRE FOY

Volker you son of a bitch, you beat up some prostitutes and then escaped prosecution, so now I’m going to take all your money and give it to battered women, including your wife! That’s right, I am a LITERAL Social Justice Warrior!

VOLKER BRUCH

Oh shit, that’s right, the earlier stories were pretty much an origin story for a feminism-themed superhero, weren’t they? Please tell me we’re not gonna use the same cartoonish sledge-hammer approach to social commentary that Stieg Larsson did.

CLAIRE FOY

Actually after this scene all that stuff stops immediately and is replaced with generic Jason Bourne stuff. We basically just shoved this scene in to be all, “Hey, remember how Lisbeth Salander is supposed to care about crap like this?” Anyway, bye.

(leaves)

INT. CLAIRE’S SQUALID FORTRESS

CLAIRE is hanging out with her fuck buddy, ANDREJA PEJIC, who finds an old photo of CLAIRE and SYLVIA.

CLAIRE FOY

That’s my sister, who was established in the prologue as being an important piece of unfinished business from my past. She went on to inherit Psycho Asshole Crimelord Child-Abusing Dad’s crime gang, but then she died and is totally dead for real and will clearly play no part in the remainder of this movie.

(laughs)

Can you imagine if anybody actually bought this? Like, how stupid would you have to be?

She gets a phone call from her hacker friend CAMERON BRITTON.

CAMERON BRITTON

Claire, you’ve got a new client who wants to meet with you.

CLAIRE FOY

Vigilantes have clients now? Why would I need a client, didn’t I steal like a billion dollars? This is weird, but what the hell, I’ll check it out.

INT. GALLERY

CLAIRE meets with her client, STEPHEN MERCHANT.

STEPHEN MERCHANT

I need you to retrieve a computer program for me. I developed it for the CIA, it’s the hacker MacGuffin.

CLAIRE FOY

The what?

STEPHEN MERCHANT

You know, that MacGuffin. From every movie from the past decade that even mentions computer hacking.

CLAIRE FOY

Ohhh, you mean the device which can auto-hack any computer in the world.

STEPHEN MERCHANT

Yeah, that lazy fucking plot device. The CIA hired me to make one that allows them to launch any nuclear missile anywhere in the world, but after I finished making it I realized, hey WAIT A MINUTE, that’s a BAD thing!

CLAIRE FOY

No duh. So since this program is a terrible thing and you don’t want it to exist, I should just hack the CIA and delete it?

STEPHEN MERCHANT

No no no, this is a special file that can’t be deleted or copied, only moved!

CLAIRE FOY

“Moved”? Isn’t that just copying the file to a new computer then deleting the original?

STEPHEN MERCHANT

Then I guess that’s what I meant. It can’t be copied or deleted, it can only be copied THEN deleted.

CLAIRE FOY

Fine, fuck it. I’ll just copy it to a laptop then put the laptop in the oven for twelve hours.

STEPHEN MERCHANT

Wellll, in the name of the movie continuing let’s act like that’s not an option.

INT. CIA

At the CIA, COMPUTER GUY LAKEITH STANFIELD is doing COMPUTER STUFF when suddenly he notices a PROGRESS BAR on his COMPUTER!

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Oh no, not a PROGRESS BAR! That means hacker stuff is happening!! Quick everybody, we have to do the ultra-sophisticated CIA anti-hacker maneuver!

CIA TECH GUY

Turn the computer off and on again?

LAKEITH STANFIELD

LITERALLY THAT!

He presses a BIG RED BUTTON that shuts all the computers down. But when he starts them up again, it’s too late! The PROGRESS BAR is COMPLETED!

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Fuck, they stole the hacker MacGuffin! Fortunately we can track the hacker’s location.

CIA TECH GUY

So we’re gonna send our top field agent to retrieve the hacker MacGuffin?

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Actually I’ll just go myself. Because as well as working in the agency’s IT department, I’m also an elite manhunter, hand-to-hand combatant and sniper.

CIA TECH GUY

Sheesh, you and Claire sound like a match made in Mary Sue heaven.

INT. CLAIRE'S SQUALID FORTRESS

CLAIRE is back home when CLAES BANG and his team of GOONS storm in, steal the hacker MacGuffin, and blow up the place with an explosion so big that twenty-foot plumes of flame leap out every window and the blast can be seen from miles away! But since CLAIRE was hiding in the BATHTUB she’s completely unharmed.

CLAIRE FOY

Not completely! I got a deep cut across my iconic dragon tattoo! Fuck, now it looks like a dragon with a big crossed-out symbol across it, like a no-smoking sign, or the Ghostbusters logo except with a dragon! Like I’m some kind of a Dragonbuster! And I use my hacker skills to slay dragons, because now that humans are technologically advanced enough to wipe out dragons they have to hide away, and can only amass hoards of wealth through online scamming! In a fictional setting where all mythical creatures lurk online I guess! Where it turns out that internet trolls are in fact literal trolls, and catfish are mermaids who pretend to be regular human women with legs, and hold on

(writes pitch for Netflix series)

INT. MAGAZINE OFFICE

Journalist SVERRIR GUDNASON is in a GLASS ELEVATOR when he notices CLAIRE in a DIFFERENT GLASS ELEVATOR across the street, who then CALLS HIM.

SVERRIR GUDNASON

Are we to understand that you carefully timed this elaborate meetup, all so you could call me on the phone, which you could have done at any time from anywhere?

(pause)

Also, holy fuck, “Sverrir Gudnason”? I guess we’re trying to make up for Daniel Craig never doing a Swedish accent by replacing him with the MOST SWEDISH PERSON IN THE WORLD.

CLAIRE FOY

Sverrir, I fucked up. Bad guys took the hacker MacGuffin, Stephen thought I was behind it and went to the cops and now is in a safe house with his kid. And this is a thriller, where the term “safe house” is never not ironic.

SVERRIR GUDNASON

Okay, I’ll use my journalist powers to try and find these bad guys of yours. Meanwhile, it’s been years, how are you?

CLAIRE FOY

OH LIKE YOU CARE, YOU FUCK. I’m still mad at you for having a casual sexual relationship with your editor!

SVERRIR GUDNASON

What? No you’re not, you got over that at the end of Hornet’s Nest.

CLAIRE FOY

Yeah well Fincher never got round to filming the sequels so we can just act like that stuff didn’t happen.

SVERRIR GUDNASON

But we bring up the article I wrote about your family history in the third book...

CLAIRE FOY

Oh sure, we’ll cherry-pick SOME bits we like, but even then we’ll change it around however we want. For instance, now I’ll act like that article was exploitative, even though in the book and in the Swedish movies I actually helped you write it! Ha ha, we can retcon you into as big of an asshole as we like.

INT. CLAIRE’S BLOWN-UP FORTRESS

LAKEITH comes and surveys the wreckage of CLAIRE’S APARTMENT.

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Damn, the hacker MacGuffin isn’t here. But wait! Earlier Claire’s fuck buddy Andreja dropped a wristband for a club that she and Claire frequent into Claire's lizard tank, for no intelligible reason! And now I've found it and it's singed but still completely legible. How convenient.

He goes to the CLUB and finds ANDREJA, who gives him the PHONE with which she usually contacts CLAIRE.

LAKEITH STANFIELD

And now I can use this phone to trick Claire into contacting me, thus allowing me to pinpoint her location! Which will SURELY help me find the hacker MacGuffin, because presumably she left with it after blowing up her own house.

He tracks the TEXT from CLAIRE and heads to the deduced location.

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Ready or not, Claire, here I am at-

(bursts in)

-the... random empty room? FUCK! Claire and Andreja were in cahoots, slipping me a fake phone! So now, I continue to not know her location, which would have also been the result if they’d done literally nothing! CURSE YOU CLAAAIIIRRRE

INT. CLAIRE’S NEW BASE

CLAIRE is watching SURVEILLANCE that she’s set up of STEPHEN’S SAFE HOUSE, when she sees CLAES and his GOONS arrive and start shooting all the GUARDS!

CLAIRE FOY

OH SHIT I BETTER GET OVER THERE RIGHT AWAY! That large team of police officers is outclassed, obviously Claes’s men need to be stopped by a more challenging opponent like a five-foot-four computer hacker!

CLAIRE hurries to the SAFE HOUSE and gets into the bathroom where STEPHEN and STEPHEN’S SON CHRISTOPHER CONVERY are hiding. But then CLAES attacks, bashing her against EVERY WALL AND FIXTURE and finally injecting her with a SEDATIVE. As she gets sleepy, he puts his gun in her hand and starts moving her arm to point the gun at STEPHEN.

STEPHEN MERCHANT

Oh fuck, that gun is moving very, very slowly in my direction! Claire’s trying to struggle against Claes, but she’s too drugged to do it by herself! If only there were somebody else here who could help her, or at least try to move his head out of the wa-

(killed)

CLAES BANG

Mwa ha ha, and now I’ll clear out, leaving Claire to take the fall! The cops will obviously believe that she massacred those guards, then came in here and shot Stephen, then smashed the bathroom to pieces with her face, then drugged herself and passed out where she could be found by the cops.

(smirks)

After all, if she tells them the real assassin was a big guy she fought and stabbed with a toothbrush, what evidence will she have? This toothbrush with my blood on it, which I’m going to remove from my thigh and just leave on the floor right here? Pffft!

He ABDUCTS CHRISTOPHER and LEAVES.

CLAIRE FOY

Fuuuck, no way for me to catch up now, I’m too doped up! Unless there happens to be some strong amphetamines I can counteract the drug with, LITERALLY within arm’s reach of where I’m lying.

(glances)

Oh would you look at that.

She snorts some PEP PILLS, staggers out to a COP CAR, and starts chasing CLAES!

CLAIRE FOY

All right, can my magic hacking powers be used to win a car chase? I know, I’ll hack Claes’s car so that the front airbags go off, which they will do SO FUCKING HARD that both Claes and the guy in the passenger seat will be instantly knocked unconscious. These are some seriously shoddy airbags, I mean Christ.

She hacks CLAES and his GOON FRIEND unconscious and un-kidnaps CHRISTOPHER! But then CLAES and GOON FRIEND wake up and start shooting machine guns at them!

CLAES BANG

Come back here, Christopher! Our whole plan hinges on taking you in alive!!

(sprays a million bullets at Christopher)

CLAIRE raises the BRIDGE that CLAES is on by using her most BORING hacker skill, PRESSING A BIG BUTTON. She and CHRISTOPHER are now free to escape, but before they do, CLAIRE looks over the other side of the bridge and sees... GROWN-UP SYLVIA!

SYLVIA HOEKS

That’s right, I’m not dead, I faked my death and ever since have been hiding away, under the radar, like an undetectable shadow! ...Who is an albino wearing a lurid all-red outfit and would probably be the first person you’d notice if she was in the middle of a fucking Mardis Gras Parade.

INT. CLAIRE’S NEW NEW BASE, DOES SHE BUY THESE THINGS WHOLESALE OR WHAT

CLAIRE takes CHRISTOPHER back to her HIDEOUT.

CLAIRE FOY

Okay, they’re after you, so I’ve got to try and get you back to your mother in America. The cleverest villain in the world would never think to look for you there!

CHRISTOPHER CONVERY

Are you also going to send your surveillance footage from the safe house to the cops, thus proving that you didn’t kill my dad and getting yourself off of Sweden’s Most Wanted list?

CLAIRE FOY

There’s no time for that now! Tell me why my sister needs you for her plan!

CHRISTOPHER CONVERY

The hacker MacGuffin can only be accessed by answering these weird riddles which are also somehow math puzzles that only I can do. So yeah, Dad created a thing that every corrupt government and evil organization in the world would want, then made it rely upon my kidnapping to work. Father of the year or what?

SVERRIR GUDNASON

(bursting in)

Okay, Claire, I did that research you wanted! I accidentally magnified part of a photo in a scene that was ripped off from Roger Rabbit of all things, tracked down a witness who could peel half his face off, and ultimately discovered that the bad guy behind all this is, BRACE YOURSELF-

CLAIRE FOY

My sister Sylvia? Yeah, I found that out myself without needing your help whatsoever.

SVERRIR GUDNASON

...Oh. But there is one thing I found out that you didn’t! You see, her gang... is called THE SPIDERS!!!

(pause)

(sighs)

Fuck, I’m only here because I’m baked into the premise, aren’t I.

CLAIRE FOY

Pretty much. Anyway, I figure the only way to get Christopher back to America is-

SVERRIR GUDNASON

He and I just get on a plane? You could hack us up some tickets in like eight seconds.

CLAIRE FOY

I was gonna say let’s use Lakeith so he has a reason to even be in the movie.

INT. AIRPORT

LAKEITH has been ARRESTED and is in a CELL at AIRPORT SECURITY, about to be kicked out of SWEDEN. But then the SECURITY GUYS notice something on their CAMERAS.

SECURITY GUARD #1

Holy shit, you guys know that Claire Foy, the extremely wanted criminal? You know, the ultra-genius hacker? THERE SHE IS IN THE AIRPORT, STARING DIRECTLY INTO A SECURITY CAMERA FOR LIKE FIFTEEN SECONDS STRAIGHT!

SECURITY GUARD #2

Nothing suspicious about that! Let’s send every single guard except one out to catch her, leaving this area virtually deserted!

SECURITY GUARD #1

Affirmative! Wait, she’s wearing a distinctive cap exactly like the person we spotted five minutes ago, who left a suspicious bag in the middle of the airport, which we then brought back and just sort of plunked down in this area without calling bomb disposal experts or anything. Should we be worried about that?

SECURITY GUARD #2

Nah, that’d require thinking, which we’re clearly not being paid to do.

They clear the area out, at which point CLAIRE remotely uses the BAG to HACK OPEN THE CELL THAT HAS EVERY PRISONER EXCEPT LAKEITH.

LAST GUARD REMAINING

Shit! I better go deal with this, by walking right into the cell, becoming surrounded by prisoners.

He DOES THIS and the CELL DOOR CLOSES BEHIND HIM! Then the CELL which contains ONLY LAKEITH opens and LAKEITH ESCAPES. Soon he hears an announcement coming over the PA SYSTEM.

PA SYSTEM

Would a Mr. Stanfield please report to Gate Number Hey Lakeith It’s Claire Isn’t This Cool I Hacked The Announcement System Anyway Sneak Out The Back I’ll Open Doors As You Go At This Stage I Basically Have The Same Point And Click Hacking Powers As The Guy From Watch_Dogs.

LAKEITH goes through all the DOORS. But CLAIRE keeps the last one LOCKED, while GUARDS get closer and closer to tracking LAKEITH down.

CLAIRE FOY

Sorry Lakeith, but I know that when you take Christopher you’ll want to keep him, so you can use him if you ever get the hacker MacGuffin back. I’ll only let you out if you PROMISE you won’t do that.

LAKEITH STANFIELD

No! Don’t make me promise! Then I won’t be able to just do it anyway!!

CLAIRE FOY

PROMISE! Remember, I have all the bargaining power because I need you and you getting captured would screw me over as well!

LAKEITH STANFIELD

All right, I promise!

CLAIRE FOY

Cross your heart and hope to die?

LAKEITH STANFIELD

(winces)

Fine.

CLAIRE FOY

All right, but when you get out here you’re pinky swearing, just to be safe.

She lets him out, and they escape.

INT. CLAIRE’S BASE

CLAIRE and LAKEITH get back to BASE, only to find that CHRISTOPHER and SVERRIR have been KIDNAPPED!

CLAIRE FOY

Shit! How did Sylvia find out where we were?

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Maybe Claes used Stephen’s phone to call Christopher? And then when Christopher saw the caller ID, he thought, “Hey, maybe it actually is the man whose brains were blown out in front of my eyes yesterday,” and answered the phone, allowing this location to be tracked?

CLAIRE FOY

Well I doubt that’s what happened, Christopher’s not a fucking moron after all. Anyway, I planted a tracking device on him, so we can find out where he is.

(computes)

Aha, he’s at my childhood home, which I already knew to have been the headquarters for that particular crime gang for the past couple of decades!

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Not sure that the tracking device was entirely necessary.

INT. CRIME MANSION

CLAIRE infiltrates SYLVIA’S BASE, but then she enters a BATHROOM which has been rigged to shoot SLEEPING GAS out of all the FAUCETS and TOILETS.

CLAIRE FOY

ARGH WHAT THE FUCK THIS MUST HAVE TAKEN LIKE A WEEK TO SET UP

(coughs, hacks)

I mean come on what is it with these guys and drugging me in bathroooooommmmmsssssszzzzzz...

She wakes up in a room with SYLVIA and CHRISTOPHER.

SYLVIA HOEKS

Okay Claire, tell Christopher to open the hacker MacGuffin for us, or we will use special injections to first blind, then kill a male person that we’ve kidnapped. It’s extremely vague whether we’re talking about Christopher or Sverrir, but either way.

CLAIRE FOY

All right, all right. Christopher, give the psycho lady what she wants.

CHRISTOPHER CONVERY

Well if you say so. I certainly wouldn’t have done it just on the threat of blindness and death, but you telling me to? That’s another story!

He activates the hacker MacGuffin, and CLAIRE is knocked out again. This time when she wakes up she’s in a GIANT HEFTY BAG, which is then SHRINK-WRAPPED ONTO HER using a VACUUM CLEANER, causing her to start to SUFFOCATE.

SYLVIA HOEKS

Hey Claire! Don't breathe! HA!

(high-fives director Fede Alvarez)

Anyway, this is that game our Dad wanted to play at the beginning of the movie. So what do you think, is it a sex thing? And if you know that it is, PLEASE don’t tell me how, for the love of GOD.

But at that moment, elsewhere, CAMERON is finishing up a THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODEL of the ENTIRE MANSION which can read in REAL TIME the exact LOCATIONS and POSES of every THUG and GOON.

CAMERON BRITTON

Holy shit, has this movie been set in the future this whole time? Seriously, this is some Minority Report crap right here. Anyway, Lakeith, let me send you the locations of the people who are just about to kill Christopher and Sverrir, so you can snipe them.

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Since Claire’s currently dying, maybe you should also paint a target on the hose of that vacuum cleaner so I can shoot it out and get her some air?

CAMERON BRITTON

Meh, I’m sure she’ll just tear her way out. Despite spending the past five minutes failing to do exactly that.

LAKEITH snipes the BAD GUYS! And CHRISTOPHER injects CLAES with some BLINDNESS JUICE! And CLAIRE does in fact get out!

CLAIRE FOY

GAAASP, I can breathe! Wait, I was naked in there? Ew, I guess that confirms the whole “sex thing” angle...

SYLVIA jumps in a CAR and SPEEDS AWAY from all the SNIPING.

SYLVIA HOEKS

Phew, got away, nice! Now that I’ve been driving away from the mansion as fast as possible for the past thirty seconds, Claire can’t catch up now! Shame about Claes, who got out of the mansion after me, and was left staggering slowly through the woods, feeling with his hands-

CLAES stumbles out onto the ROAD in front of the CAR.

SYLVIA HOEKS

(crashing into Claes, spinning out wildly)

HOW IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK DOES THAT MAKE THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF GODDAMN SENSE

(crashes into trees)

SYLVIA crawls out of the WRECKAGE and staggers away. Eventually she finds herself at the edge of a CLIFF, where CLAIRE arrives and holds her at gunpoint.

SYLVIA HOEKS

Grrr, I hate you, Claire! The real monster was never me, or Psycho Asshole Crimelord Child-Abuser Dad, but YOU! All the time you’ve spent as a vigilante, helping women, and you never helped me! ...Even though all the vigilante stuff happened in the past couple of years when I was pretending to be dead. But still! How come you never tried to save me from our father?

CLAIRE FOY

Didn’t try to - are you fucking kidding me? I tried to KILL our father, you idiot! I SET HIM ON FIRE! Then got hurled into a psych ward to get tortured by a pedophile for five years!

SYLVIA HOEKS

Oh right. You totally did all that, didn’t you? Huh, I guess my whole motive is dumb, then. Oh well, I guess there’s nothing for me to do but the TOTALLY SHOCKING MOVE OF-

CLAIRE FOY

Yeah yeah, you’re gonna willingly drop off the cliff to your ambiguous death. I know. It was in the trailer.

SYLVIA HOEKS

...NO.

CLAIRE FOY

Yes.

SYLVIA HOEKS

The fucking DEATH of the fucking MAIN VILLAIN at the end of the fucking CLIMAX was in the GODDAMN FUCKING TRAILER?!?

CLAIRE FOY

It totally was. It had your entire motive rant and everything. I’ve been waiting for this scene to happen for the past hour.

SYLVIA HOEKS

Well I’ve changed my mind about who the real monster is, I mean holy FUCK.

(falls off cliff, finally)

At last, when LAKEITH arrives on the scene, he finds CLAIRE has left, and only the laptop with the hacker MacGuffin is there. But its HARD DRIVE has been WIPED.

LAKEITH STANFIELD

Damnit! She deleted every last file on the computer! Including the program whose whole deal was that it couldn’t be deleted, seriously Stephen what the hell were you even talking about?

INT. MAGAZINE OFFICE

SVERRIR is writing an ARTICLE about all that ABSURD BULLSHIT we just watched.

SVERRIR GUDNASON

“...and then Christopher got to go home, and they all lived happily ever after. The End.”

(pause)

Well it’s a great article, even if most of what happens in it is completely stupid, but this time I’m not going to exploit Claire’s personal life for my own fame and glory.

(deletes entire story)

There! Clearly I’ve grown into a more mature and sensitive person.

CLAIRE FOY

Yeah, not like that exposé was going to exonerate me of murdering a dozen police officers or anything, THANKS A BUNCH ASSHOLE

END.