Aiport novels...?

A friend of mine recently complained to me (when we were talking about David Fincher movies we've seen and how strange we thought it was that he was supposedly attached to direct World War Z part 2... A little bit like how strange it was when David Cronenberg was contemplating directing Basic Instinct 2) that Fincher needs to stop adapting "airport novels".
He then named Gone Girl and Girl With A Dragon Tattoo.
He then stopped himself and I stopped him as well, claiming that (IMO) Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was brilliant.
I mean... I saw it on Christmas of 2011 with my Mom (which used to be a tradition with us: seeing a movie on Christmas Day) and I had no idea what the plot was or anything about it... other than the fact that it was adapted from a best-selling novel that suburbanites were gobbling up and it had already been adapted into a film in its home country of Sweden... The Swedish version had actually played in an art house theater in St. Louis, but I didn't get there in time to see it, despite it showing for many weeks, so I watched the Swedish version on Netflix during my Winter Break in 2011... after I'd seen the American version (which I think was better)... I only did that out of curiosity and because I was hungry for more Lisbeth Salander action.
Anyhow, I not only loved the movie so much that I bought the DVD (for $5 from Best Buy) some years later (Christmas of 2013, I believe), but I've since bought the first two books in that Millennium series. Also, that was the movie that got me addicted to Roony Mara (that abysmal and blasphemous remake of Nightmare On Elm Street wasn't her fault; she's forgiven).
Also, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo marked the "return of David Fincher".
Once in a while he missteps into movies that are too obvious (Panic Room, The Game)... And sometimes he just makes some head-scratching stuff (Social Network, anyone?... A movie about Facebook... Starring Justin Timberlake... from the guy who made Se7en and Fight Club?... I dunno).
But Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was classic Fincher material and perfectly matched to him.
I'm incredibly sad that the same team (Fincer-Mara-Craig) are not continuing the franchise in America.
With that said, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo follows in a long tradition of novels that are hit best-sellers (and are, in turn, turned into hit movie franchises) because they appeal to and fulfill a need that suburbanites have.
Da Vinci Code (and its endless stream of terrible sequels) made suburbanites feel smart.
Girl With A Dragon Tattoo made them feel "counter-culture" and "punk rock" (whatever that means anymore... or ever did).
50 Shades of Grey made them feel naughty.
See?
I've often thought that if I just wrote material that catered to the lonely suburban housewife demographic, the puritanical (but hypocritically lecherous) and disgruntled (with life) suburban husband demographic... or the entitled, devil-may-care-because-the-world-is-my-oyster suburban teenager demographic... well, I'd be an established screenwriter right now and extremely famous... like, you know, Diablo Cody or Lena Dunham.

But I digress.

I thought it was a bit pretentious and dismissive for my friend to call the books Fincher has been filming "airport novels".
Especially since this friend of mine and I have a great affinity for film novelizations.
I read them voraciously when I was a teenager (before film screenplays were readily available either in hard copy or digitally over the web).