Robert Langdon, the mulleted hero professor from THE DA VINCI CODE and ANGELS AND DEMONS, has not exactly been critically acclaimed despite box office success, but the best-selling Dan Brown novels are still huge draws for book fans. It was already known that Sony was still developing the third book in the series, THE LOST SYMBOL, with director Mark Romanek circling after Ron Howard‘s departure. No word on progress with that movie, but it was announced that the fourth novel would be released on May 14th with rights to the movie already in Sony’s possession.
The new Langdon novel, INFERNO, is set in Europe and inspired by Dante, author of the 14th Century poem The Divine Comedy, the author’s journey through hell, purgatory and heaven.
I have read the first three books and was not incredibly impressed. The detail of research that Dan Brown does is impressive and gives you a lot of history to go along with intriguing puzzles, but the dialogue and plots are laughably bad. The Ron Howard films are not much better. I tend to equate the books to HARRY POTTER or TWILIGHT where the fans are so rabid that they are unable to see the blatant issues with the writing.
There are not many films like ANGELS AND DEMONS or THE DA VINCI CODE anymore seeing as NATIONAL TREASURE and INDIANA JONES are likely not getting future films, but I am convinced we can get better historical adventure mysteries like these, we just need the right filmmakers. If Mark Romanek does in fact sign up for THE LOST SYMBOL, that may be the first Robert Langdon movie worth a damn. Hopefully Tom Hanks leaves the mullet wig at home.