Angels and Demons, I am told, is the better of the DaVinci Code books, and is well on its way to becoming a prequel to the most mixed reviewed movie in Tom Hanks career. And they have added Ayelet Zurer to the cast.
A big piece of the Angels and Demons casting puzzle has just been filled. According to Hollywood Insider, Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer has been cast as Vittoria Vetra for Angels and Demons.
The DaVinci Code was such a critically acclaimed book that it was doomed to be a movie, and fans either loved or hated the film. I ask one person if they liked it and it gets me a heartfelt fanboy rant about how good it was or a sigh of disgust followed by the lack of effort to go into what they hated one more time.
With such mixed reactions, were there enough people that are going to want to see this prequel? Should they have started with this one first?
I just don’t know. I haven’t read the books as they dont really fit in the genre I prefer to read.
Is casting news getting you excited about this or were you already done with DaVinci?
davinci was the better book (see every best seller list) hopefully A&D will be the better movie…
I loved the book Da Vinci Code but here was the problem with adapting the book into a movie. Da Vinci Code dealt a lot with historical references and explaining how those references linked to whatever they were trying to figure out at the time. This works really well in a book because you’re finding out more about whats going on similar to when you’re reading what a character is thinking. In a movie, this does not work well, in a movie the scene will go from story to lecture and that’s where Da Vinci Code went wrong. There’s a scene where Hanks and McKellen were discussing how the grail is Mary Magdalene and it felt like i was watching History Channel on the big screen. This might not be a problem that the book makes a bad movie and could have just been an adaptation problem. If Demons is going to succeed they’re going to need to do a way better job at adapting the book than previously done.
I loved the book (Da Vinci Code) myself (even if the source and the material presented as fact in the book WAS bullshit) but yeah, the movie was atrocious.
I wouldn’t make any great effort to see Angels and Demons if it’s done by the same group of people…hand it off to someone else who can do something with it.
Angels and Demons IS a really good book and I’d be interested in seeing a movie IF (and ONLY IF) they got a new team behind it. And made it good. Because with a new team and it still being crap, screw it.
“The DaVinci Code was such a critically acclaimed book…”
Umm…the book wasn’t exactly acclaimed by critics. I think the word you’re looking for is “disdained.”
Your point about books with large followings being difficult to translate to movies stands, of course, but in this case the source quality wasn’t really all that great to begin with.