Third "Da Vinci Code" Film Announced Already: Has the Hollywood Fast Track Just Gotten Faster?

By: Garrett Thomas Posted: April 21, 2009 Filed under: Official Info

Weeks shy of the Angels & Demons release, Columbia Pictures has announced their plans for the third Da Vinci Code installment on Dan Brown's upcoming adventure titled, The Lost Symbol, a novel that will not be out until this September. This time the Robert Langdon character (portrayed by Tom Hanks in the films) is chasing down a Freemason mystery in Washington, D.C. If either of the previous novels are any indication we can expect years of research whittled down into an extremely short time period in which the story takes place.

The Brown narrative of fast-moving characters and plots in his novels seems to be a microcosm of the recent trend in Hollywood of announcing sequels and adaptations to films that have yet to be released. So far this year alone we've seen the same sequel announcement as a precursor to anticipated releases of films like Star Trek and Transformers 2. Even unlikely candidates like the upcoming comedy The Hangover have been following this trend, all getting their sequel wings wet before its predecessor has jumped the nest and attempted flight. While I'm sure these studio moves are heavily calculated and the risk is low or downplayed I still can't help but marvel at its swiftness. On the upside we get to see the continuation of story in a faster time frame while the other side of the scale is left wide open for huge monetary blunders. How long studios can go before they're bitten on this strategy is unknown but it'll sure be a fun roller coaster ride until then.

What sets apart the The Lost Symbol announcement apart from the aforementioned films is that Dan Brown's novel has yet to be published. If production starts around or even before that same time we can expect a novel and its film adaptation to have an impressively close release. The savings on the publicity and press to remind the general public of its existence could be a substantial amount, especially if the film comes out in collaboration with a paperback release of the novel. A similarly ballsy move along these same lines was made when Matthew Vaughn was hired on to adapt Mark Millar's Kick-Ass into a film when the series was still in its infancy around this same time in 2008. A definite drawback to that type of fast movement is that some of the Kick-Ass production photos have started to reveal things not yet explored in the comic book series, possibly detracting from the overall enjoyment of it for any avid fans eagerly following the film's development.

I see this as a sign that there's definitely a line a studio can cross when it makes the decision to produce something that is still in written development at the source. Given the overall lack of originality in Hollywood movies of late, I don't foresee this trend of pre-mature sequel and adaptation announcements to end any time soon, so let's hope it's handled with care. After all, an unexpected surprise can still be a messy thing to clean up.

[Associated Press, Variety via Slashfilm]