Dan Brown’s bestselling THE LOST SYMBOL, featuring Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon, will follow THE DA VINCI CODE and ANGELS & DEMONS into theaters, but it won’t be written by Akiva Goldsmith, writer of the first two screenplays.

According to reports in Variety, Steven Knight (Eastern Promises) has been chosen to pen the 3rd movie.  Also, so far, Ron Howard, director of the first two, is currently only attached as a producer, and Tom Hanks hasn’t signed up to repeat his role as Langdon, but it’s hoped that the duo will continue the successful relationship that helped turn the 1st two movies into box office magic.   Hanks himself has said about doing a third movie, “I’d love to if they’re going to do it. I’m not going to walk away from that. If they make it again, I hope they ask me.”

ANGELS & DEMONS did not due as well as THE DA VINCI CODE at the box office.  However, THE LOST SYMBOL was the fastest selling adult fiction book in history (selling 1 million copies on its first day of release back in Sept 2009) so it’s no doubt hoped by Columbia that the new movie will kick the franchise’s revenue back up a notch or two. The new book (and film) take Langdon this time to Washington DC and up against Freemason mythos.  The movie has an anticipated release date of 2012.

THE LOVELY BONES, the acclaimed bestselling novel by Alice Sebold, tells the story of a girl who was murdered and who is narrating the story from Heaven.  It is a tale of someone torn between vengeance and trying to heal those left behind.

Now the movie based on the book hits theaters Jan 15th. It stars Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon, Amanda Michalka,   Stanley Tucci,  Michael Imperioli and Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon, the narrator of the tale.  (Ronan was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role in ATONEMENT.)

The original book, THE LOVELY BONES, draws some of its inspiration from Sebold’s own life: brutally attacked and raped while in college in the 1980s, she was told by police that she had been “lucky” to survive as a previous victim had perished. (“Lucky” became the title of her first book, a memoir of the attack .)  Just a few months after she was attacked, she recognized her attacker still stalking the Syracuse University area and was able to testify against him, putting him in prison.  She managed to complete her degree (after taking a few months off ), then went into graduate work and spent the next 15 years or so waitressing, studying writing and trying to write her story.

Sebold originally tried turning her experiences into poetry, then novels, finally getting published in 1999 with LUCKY. THE LOVELY BONES was published in 2002, winning the Bram Stoker award for best first novel. (LUCKY was non-fiction.)

And now 8 years later, THE LOVELY BONES finally hits the big screen.

Check out the movie trailer:

Which do YOU find harder to do?

Read a book and then watch the movie

Or

See a movie, then read the (original) book?

I’ve noticed that most movies aren’t as good as the original book or story it was based on, or are sometimes so different as to only have the title in common. But if I’ve seen the movie based on the book first, I think it taints my reading and I may not appreciate the book as much as I might have if I’d read it before seeing the movie.

However, I hate reading the book first on a movie that looks really interesting, not wanting to ruin any surprises ahead of time.

How about you?