Why Tom Hanks’ The Lost Symbol Movie Was Cancelled (& Became A TV Show)

screenrant.com:

Here’s why Tom Hanks’ The Lost Symbol movie, a part of the Robert Langdon film franchise, was canceled, and eventually adapted into a series of the same name. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol is the third installment in the established Robert Langdon timeline, dealing with the Harvard symbologist’s race against time in Washington D.C., which purportedly hosts an ancient portal promising apotheosis. As director Ron Howard and leading man Tom Hanks decided to skip this text in the movie franchise, The Lost Symbol was transformed into a television series that acts as a prequel in the franchise itself, featuring a younger Langdon. The show premiered on September 16, 2021, and is available for streaming on Peacock.

While The Lost Symbol movie connects to Robert Langdon's storyline and would've been well-received with Tom Hanks at the helm, the decision to turn the book into a television prequel might've been the smartest choice based on Ron Howard and Hanks' reasonings — even though the series was canceled. Despite dealing with a wide range of secret societies, underground cults, cryptic documents, and monuments laden with religio-cultural significance, all Dan Brown novels follow a formulaic approach in terms of the Robert Langdon narratives. The explosive success of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons on the big screen can be attributed to the intricacies of the plot, which branches out like a maze and unites discordant elements and symbols across history and time. While The Da Vinci Code dealt exclusively with the Holy Grail's lore and its related symbolism, the Robert Langdon franchise's second installment, Angels and Demons, forayed deep into the crypts of the Vatican’s best-kept secrets, and the existence of a society