Columbia begin work on new Dan Brown/Robert Langdon thriller THE LOST SYMBOL!

Columbia Pictures don't wanna waste any time milking the cash cow that is Dan Brown. According to today's Variety, the studio have already begun early development on securing the rights to his next novel, the September published The Lost Symbol, with the hope of once again convincing lead Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard to jump on board. Brown's novel is his first since the runaway success of The Da Vinci Code at the beginning of the Millennium, a book that will once again follow Robert Langdon on another historical code-breaking thriller. Doubleday and Random House will The Lost Symbol in September, of which 5 million copies are to be printed. That's a record for any book in Random House's history but probably won't be anywhere near enough as Angels & Demons sold $39 million, and The Da Vinci Code $89 million which as Michael Fleming points out deliciously, "puts it behind the Bible but not much else". The book comes as a welcome relief to the struggling book industry and retailers will be hoping that the Dan Brown fad is still very much alive and well. Interesting that this move just further cements what is happening with the rest of the May released film franchises of 2009. We already know Paramount have begun work on a new Star Trek, 20th Century Fox have begun developing a new Wolverine movie and Warner Bros. see at least three movies in the Terminator series. All of course depends on how May goes for each movie at the box office. Gotta say, I kinda liked The Da Vinci Code movie as a lite-Indiana Jones without the adventure, and Angels & Demons looks to ramp up the suspense by about ten fold which should do the series a lot of good. I'm not adverse to seeing more.