Sony’s first two tentpole movies based on Dan Brown’s novels, are Tom Hanks and Ron Howard, the star and director, respectively, of There were also issues with Ron Howard opting out for the supposed The Lost Symbol but rejoining when the plan switched to Inferno (along with screenwriter David Koepp?), so maybe that was a factor, too, as can be read here: It also seems, that they indeed wanted to do The Lost Symbol after Angels & Demons, but changed their mind when Inferno was released in mid-2013. The Lost Symbol seems to tread quite a different path, having him on a chase through American history and Freemasonry in Washington D.C., a path that the National Treasure franchise already went rather successfully. But given the summaries on Wikipedia, it may also be that they wanted to continue Robert Langdon's travel through the Old World and Renaissance history as in the previous movies, which Inferno seems to be pretty in line with. Maybe it was to profit from the temporal adjacency to Inferno's publication or maybe The Lost Symbol didn't sell too well (though that doesn't seem the case). Howard was also moreĬomfortable taking liberties in adapting the story because the novelīut as to why The Lost Symbol was skipped for the movies, I don't have as obvious a theory, yet. He liked the idea that Langdon had been through oneĪdventure and become a more confident character. Ron Howard chose to treat Angels & Demons as a sequel to the previousįilm, rather than a prequel, since many had read the novel after Theĭa Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code in a deal with author Dan Brown. In 2003, Sony acquired the film rights to Angels & Demons along with

Wikipedia seems to support this to some degree: And only later after a whole bigger crowd had noticed Dan Brown and after the Da Vinci Code movie was a big success, too, they are catching up on Robert Langdon's previous adventures. So it was just a matter of time till it got turned into a movie. While Dan Brown might have been regarded as a best-selling author even before The Da Vinci Code, this book was a major success world-wide and gathered an attention much higher than Angels & Demons or any of his previous books did, I think. I'd say that this order was prescribed by The Da Vinci Code (the book)'s high success.

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