The Da Vinci Codewas the second highest-grossing movie of 2006, based on the equally successful book by Dan Brown and starring Tom Hanks in the lead role of Robert Langdon. While the film produced the sequels ofAngels & DemonsandInferno,they both massively underperformed at the box office, killing off the chance of a fourth movie. However, a Peacock-produced series based on Brown’s novelThe Lost Symbolarrived last year, giving the character of Robert Langdon another shot. Still, it seems that too has now been buried in the past with the series being canceled after just one season.
Making its debut in September 2021, the series acts as a prequel to the film trilogy and casts Ashley Zukerman as Harvard symbologist Langdon. Dan Trachtenberg served as director for the pilot episode and executive producer for the rest of the season alongside Ron Howard, Brian Grazer andDan Brown. Originally, the adaptation was planned as the third movie for Tom Hanks, but was eventually dropped in favor of Inferno. Three years later, the project was announced as being reworked into a TV series and in March 2021, it was revealed that Peacock had picked up the show’s premiere season.
On its debut,The Lost Symbolwas met with mixed reviews, which in fairness were better than those received by Inferno, but still only landed the show a 50% approval rate onRotten Tomatoes. The consensus shared on the site reads, “With a promising premise, handsome locations, and a well-known character,The Lost Symbolhas all the pieces necessary to be an addictive addition to Robert Langdon’s story—if only the show’s flat writing and strange pace didn’t undermine all that potential.”
The Da Vinci Code’s Popularity Caused Problems For The Lost Symbol and Its Sequels
Just like a singer who debuts with a hit so big that they struggle to match its success across the rest of their career, the phenomenal success of both the book and movie version ofThe Da Vinci Codeimmediately caused a problem for any future adaptations, because they were always going to be compared to that stories achievements. As it was,The Da Vinci Codewas not the first book released by Brown, as it was preceded byAngels & Demons,but having been the first movie in the series, the film effectively put the future of the franchise on the back foot.
The Lost Symbol’s option to take on the TV market would have been the only real option left for the franchise to continue, with Inferno having made just $220 million at the box office, almost a quarter of whatThe Da Vinci Codegrossed a decade earlier. However, while it did have strong team behind it, possibly it needed a big star name like Tom Hanks to keep it afloat, and without that, it seems the series was always destined to soon find its way into the TV graveyard of one season duds.
