Despite being pushed to 2016, Ron Howard and Tom Hanks have already moved forward with casting their third outing based on one of author Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon adventures. INFERNO, based on the fourth Langdon adventure, has cast THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING’s Felicity Jones as the female lead in the thriller.
THE DA VINCI CODE spawned a massive fan following that lead to a film adaptation as well as a sequel based on the first book, ANGELS AND DEMONS. A third novel was published, THE LOST SYMBOL, which was in pre-production but never made it past the early stages. INFERNO, however, returns to the Italian roots of the first two films.
In Inferno, Harvard symbologist Henry Langdon (Hanks) awakens in an Italian hospital with amnesia. He teams up with Sienna Brooks, the role Jones is being considered for, a doctor he hopes will help him recover his memories and prevent a madman from releasing a global plague connected to Dante’s Inferno.
In theory, the Robert Langdon adventures should be no-brainers for Hollywood, but both have been very generic in their execution. Ron Howard usually does a better job in his films aside from this series, so I don’t hold out much hope that this will be much better. Felicity Jones is a talented actress and she should definitely bring something in the footsteps of prior female leads Audrey Tatou and Ayelet Zurer.
INFERNO is slated for a 2016 release.