Ron Howard Decides Against Directing The Lost Symbol

Bit of a surprise here. Sony is developing the third Robert Langdon adventure The Lost Symbol (following the bore-tastic The Da Vinci Code and its follow-up that I avoided like the plague Angels & Demons) and given its steady-stream of revenue, we assumed both Tom Hanks and helmer Ron Howard were coming back.

Reports "TOLDJA" Hanks will definitely be back rocking the mullet. Howard, on the other hand, is calling it a day from the Dan Brown-adapted films. As per their Sony moles, he's just plain getting bored with those characters and retreading that territory for a third time. Fair enough.

Since his docket is full, including The Dark Tower (which Universal just dropped like a bad habit but another studio, like Warner Brothers or Disney, could grab) and the Chris Hemsworth-attached Rush, it's not like Howard won't keep on chugging along while Sony searches for his replacement on Symbol.