Sequels tend to make more than their predecessors, no matter how crappy they are (Ratner’s X3 was the highest-grossing X-Men, for example).  That’s why they’re such an easy call.  Angels and Demons¹, meanwhile, made barely more than half Da Vinci Code, which is not only a good indication that the public’s had an ass full of this franchise, but that interest was waning before the last movie came out.  Nonetheless, Sony’s has hired a writer to adapt Dan Brown’s latest, The Lost Symbol.  Ron Howard and Tom Hanks haven’t signed yet, but they probably will — it’s not like they did the first two for indie cred.  You know the drill:

As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building. Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object–artfully encoded with five symbols–is discovered in the Capitol Building. Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation . . . one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom. [...] Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations–all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth. [Amazon via /Film]

As long as Tom Hanks is rocking weird hair and doing a bad Nic Cage impression, they might as well just cast Cage and make it some kind of pop-history, bad hair, buddy professor movie.

HANKS: My great great grandfather Beauregard was ostracized as a coot and died in a mental institution in 1875, but I’ve discovered the clue that proves he was right all along!

CAGE: You don’t mean… Blackbeard’s treasure?  You’re crazy, Langdon!

HANKS: Quick!  Hand me that penny!

Read the rest of this entry »

^{Tell me… Is this where the weed at, Your Holiness?}

The Da Vinci Code sucked and Angels & Demons doesn’t look any better, but that didn’t stop Columbia from greenlighting a sequel as soon as the ink was dry on Dan Brown’s latest manuscript.  With any luck, there’s still time to convince Ron Howard to cut the translucent fuzz on top of his head before the next press tour. (*dry heave*)

Dan Brown has announced that his next installment of the “Da Vinci Code” series is “The Lost Symbol,” which will be published in the U.S. and Canada by Doubleday on September 15, 2009. The first print run will be a whopping 5 million copies.  “This is a great day for readers and booksellers,” said Sonny Mehta, chairman/editor in chief of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

It is not a bad day for Columbia Pictures, either, which has another continuing global franchise to go along with “Spider-Man.” [Variety]

Yes, come to think of it, the Dan Brown trilogy is just like Spider-Man. Seems like every Halloween, more and more kids come to my door dressed in Tom Hanks wigs and plastic foreheads.  They love that biblical shit.

Last night during 30 Rock, NBC played an extended preview for Angels and Demons, the film the Catholic church is afraid of (mainly because the first one sucked).  The knock on the first one, The Da Vinci Code, which was almost universally panned, was that it was all talk.  Reviews from the San Jose Mercury – “it’s a thriller with a lot of explaining to do, which it does, endlessly, while we wait for an actual movie to break out,” and Variety – “An oppressively talky film,” were fairly representative of the whole.  So naturally this time around Ron Howard and co learned from their mistakes.  And by that I mean of course they didn’t, they filmed a 60 -second TV spot in which Tom Hanks explains the entire plot via voice over.

This summer, Tom Hanks is… THE EXPOSITOR.
Read the rest of this entry »

After the jump, I’ve got the full trailer for Angels and Demons, in which Tom Hanks takes his brotox forehead and weird floppy hair to Italy to do a passable Nic Cage impression and solve the age-old mystery at the heart of the Catholic church: does the pope indeed shit in the woods?  Or was that the bear?  Or maybe it was Nic Cage dressed as a bear.  These can’t be mere coincidences, people.
Read the rest of this entry »

Naomi Watts has reportedly signed up for Angels and Demons, the sequel/prequel to The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks and helmed by Ron Howard. 

Dan Brown’s "Angels & Demons," published in 2000, introduced the Robert Langdon character played by Tom Hanks, a Harvard professor who’s an expert in religious symbols, in "Code." In "Angels," Langdon’s character tries to solve a murder and unravel a plot by an ancient group, the Illuminati, to blow up the Vatican during a papal conclave. 

Would it be naïve to hope (against hope) that this will be as good as the Da Vinci Code or, dare I say it, as good as the book on which it’s based??  Anyway, all I’m saying is, LOOK GOD, RON HOWARD’S INSULTING YOUR SON AGAIN, NOW’S YOUR CHANCE TO SMITE HIM!  SMITE SMITE SMITE!  Oh, and uh, there’s some people in Africa that are starving, and/or being raped and murdered or something.  Kind of a whenever-you-get-the-chance kind of a thing.   

It’s also important to note that Naomi Watts is an anagram for “I on twats, ma," which I find rather telling.