With "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown's news Tuesday morning that he would be releasing a new Robert Langdon adventure in May, we thought it wise to check in with the movie prospects for Brown's last Langdon tale, "The Lost Symbol," which resided on the New York Times hard-cover fiction bestseller list for 29 weeks and has 30 million copies in print worldwide.
Sony's Columbia Pictures, which released the previous two films, "The DaVinci Code" and "Angels and Demons," owns the option to all of Brown's future projects involving Langdon, including "The Lost Symbol" and the upcoming "Inferno."
The studio has been developing the 2009 book with Imagine Entertainment even though director Ron Howard, who helmed the first two pictures and co-owns the production company, bowed out of directing this one.
"The DaVinci Code" was a huge hit when it opened in 2006, earning close to $758 million worldwide. Its successor, "Angels and Demons," was not nearly as profitable, yet still generated close to $486 million in 2009. Both films were poorly reviewed, yet that did nothing to curb the Christian-themed travelogues' box office appeal. Perhaps the involvement of a new creative team could infuse fresh life into the internationally themed tales.