Ron Howard on why he skipped over The Lost Symbol in favor of Inferno

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Ron Howard's adaptations of Dan Brown's hugely popular series of novels centering around Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon haven't exactly kept to the same order as the books. The first film (THE DA VINCI CODE) was based on the second book while the second film (ANGELS & DEMONS) was based on the first. Dan Brown's fourth novel in the series is the basis of the upcoming INFERNO, which means that "The Lost Symbol" has gotten the shaft, at least for now. CinemaBlend caught up with Ron Howard recently and asked him why he decided to skip over "The Lost Symbol" in favour of "Inferno".

Cinematically, when Lost Symbol came out, I think our feeling, my feeling was that it's a terrific, another terrific novel. It's great material, but it felt like, coming close on the heels of Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code, that thematically and tonally, it might feel a little bit too much like the other books, at that particular moment. [Inferno] immediately felt like a cinematic next step, and that excited us. Lost Symbol is outstanding and you know, someday, something important has to be done with it.

"The Lost Symbol" follows Robert Langdon as he's been invited to Washington D.C. under false pretenses and is forced to uncover the Mason's Pyramid, which Masons believe is hidden somewhere underground in Washington D.C., and the Lost Word, lest his kidnapped mentor Peter Solomon be executed. Ron Howard didn't immediately skip over "The Lost Symbol" but said that they moved on because they could just never crack the script to their satisfaction.

We've had scripts on it, and that was the other thing. We just never could just internally crack it, to the point that we felt like this is, something we're dying, that we just have to sort of, we have to tell, and we believe audiences are going to want to see it.

INFERNO hits theaters on October 28, 2016.