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'Game Change' Writer Danny Strong To Adapt 'The Lost Symbol' For Director Mark Romanek

By Benjamin Wright
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March 2, 2012 9:40 AM
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3 Comments

News

While we’d be lying if we clamored on about the supposed artistic merits to the work of author Dan Brown, there’s little denying that both his books and their film adaptations are big business, especially after being turned into two successful blockbusters in “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons.” While it was director Ron Howard who kick started the chronicles of symbologist Robert Langdon with “Da Vinci Code” in 2006, after the creative and financial drop-off of the second installment “Angels & Demons,” Howard recently opted out of directing the third Brown novel in the Langdon series. This left studio Sony looking for a replacement director for “The Lost Symbol,” and they put “Never Let Me Go” helmer Mark Romenek at the top of their list.

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 19, 2011 9:05 AM
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4 Comments

Music video and commercials director Mark Romanek has had a bumpy ride in Hollywood of late. After making an impression with his debut feature "One Hour Photo," the director moved on up to the monster movie feature "The Wolfman" but walked away during the film's famously contentious production. Instead, he helmed an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel "Never Let Me Go," but unfortunately, it didn't quite become the awards season horse or critical darling many expected, picking up mixed reviews and a muted response at the box office. Then there was his pilot for Fox, "Locke & Key," which was canceled, and despite recent airings at San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic-Con in an attempt to revive interest, that too seems to have fallen by the wayside. But all that said, Romanek is still a respected helmer and over the past few months he's slowly been picking up heat, getting attached to direct a live action "Cinderella" film and being offered the chair for "The Wolverine" (which he turned down). Well, another big project may be coming his way and it will potentially reunite him with a star he was set to work with a few years back.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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July 27, 2011 12:58 PM
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1 Comment

Ron Howard's insanely ambitious "The Dark Tower," a three-film, two-TV series adaptation of Stephen King's epic fantasy series, looks to be pretty much dead: it was delayed in search of budget cuts, before Universal dropped it altogether, and the chances of another studio picking up the slack looks to be slim at this point. But the director, still seen as one of the safest pairs of hands around, hasn't sunk into grief: he's prepping Formula 1 drama "Rush" with Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl, which should shoot at the end of the year, and he's got a number of other projects circling: fantasy actioner "Amnesty," MAD Magazine adaptation "Spy Vs. Spy" and the Dustin Lance Black-penned Mormon drama "Under The Banner of Heaven."

By Oliver Lyttelton
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December 21, 2010 3:02 AM
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0 Comments

Presumably The Original Draft Wasn't Idiotic Enough Never underestimate the appetites of the general public for badly written, dull mystery movies: despite the disappointing US gross of Sony's "Angels & Demons," the film made close to half a billion dollars worldwide, continuing the success that the studio had with the first film based on author Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series, "The Da Vinci Code," back in 2006. With Brown's third novel featuring the character, "The Lost Symbol," becoming the fastest-selling adult novel of all time on its release last year, Sony swiftly moved ahead on an adaptation of that too.