Angels & Demons took a bit of a dive at the box office last year, making only $485 million compared to The Da Vinci Code‘s $758 million. The Narnia franchise found itself in a similar position after it’s second movie under-performed, but unlike Disney Columbia Pictures has decided to stick with the franchise and is moving forward with the third film, The Lost Symbol.

According to THR Dan Brown, the author behind the book series, has been brought on-board to write the script. Interesting.

Mega-selling mystery author Dan Brown has taken over writing duties on the film adaptation of The Lost Symbol.

The 2006 adaptation of The Da Vinci Code and the 2009 version of Angels & Demons grossed $1.24 billion at the worldwide box office for Sony. But this is the first time Brown has taken on screenwriting duties. Akiva Goldsman penned Da Vinci and co-wrote Demons with David Koepp.

Oscar-nominated Eastern Promises scribe Steven Knight first took a run at the Symbol screenplay. Although Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment is once again producing, Howard, who directed the first two Brown adaptations, has not committed to directing Symbol. Nor has star Tom Hanks officially come on board to reprise Langdon.

Ron Howard has already set his sights on directing a trilogy and two seasons of a TV show based on Stephen King’s epic book series The Dark Tower, so he may not be available for The Lost Symbol unless his schedule allows him to make both. They could hire another director, as the only person who can’t really be replaced is Tom Hanks.

Here’s the book’s synopsis:

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.

When Langdon’s beloved mentor, Peter Solomon—a prominent Mason and philanthropist —is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. 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.

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Apparently, the Catholic Church hasn’t forgotten the firestorm of controversy that The Da Vinci Code (book AND film) dredged up a few years ago.

According to new reports, the team behind the upcoming Angels & Demons film adaptation, including director Ron Howard and actor Tom Hanks, have been banned from filming in two churches because the movie “does not conform to our views,” said Monsignor Marco Fibbi, a spokesman for the diocese.

The crew had asked to film in the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, two architectural jewels in the heart of Rome that include paintings by Caravaggio, sculptures by Bernini and a chapel designed by Raphael.

Permission was denied in 2007, but the issue [re]surfaced only now that filming is ongoing in Rome, Fibbi said. The Sony-produced film was put on hold during the Writers Guild of America strike that ended in February and is now scheduled for release in May 2009.

“It’s a film that treats religious issues in a way that contrasts with common religious sentiment,” Fibbi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “We would be helping them create a work that might well be beautiful but that does not conform to our views.”

Fibbi acknowledged that the controversy over writer Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” and its blockbuster movie version had weighed on the decision.

The ban won’t extend to the exterior of the buildings, but film crews will not be allowed inside.

Something the church DOES seem to have forgotten is that, by boycotting and otherwise trying to block the release of the movie (and book, for that matter), it only added fuel to the controversy and probably made the franchise THAT MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL.  People who wouldn’t ordinarily have read the book or seen the movie were intrigued by something the church was so vehemently trying to squash.

Lesson to be learned: If you don’t want to make a big deal out of something, IGNORE IT.  Besides, they obviously haven’t read A&D, because it has nothing to do with biblical conspiracies.  The movie’s going to be successful anyway.  Ah well.

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