The movie column Deadline is reporting that Mark Romanek is the possible new director for the Sony Pictures big budget screen version of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Ron Howard, who directed both The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol, has bowed out in favor of producing. No official word on whether Tom Hanks will return as symbologist Robert Langdon, but that is expected. Brown is penning the script for the film after writer Steven Knight left the project.Romanek is best known for 2002's One Hour Photo and the recent Never Let Me Go.
The film will be a high visibility project for Freemasonry, with much of it taking place in the Scottish Rite's House of the Temple (too early to know if they will actually shoot in the HOT, or create it on a soundstage as they did the Vatican in Angels & Demons). And in case you think these have been inconsequential films, The Da Vinci Code made $758 million worldwide in 2006, and A&D made $486 million — over a billion dollars combined.
No word on a possible release date yet.
