Robert Langdon’s smarts give him enduring appeal
He doesn’t have any helpful superpowers and his penchant for fisticuffs is probably a little lacking. But literary-turned-cinematic character Robert Langdon still manages to be an A-list action star.
So what’s behind Langdon’s enduring appeal? Over the course of four best-selling Dan Brown novels and three of director Ron Howard’s film adaptations — including In
ferno, in theaters Friday — the world-traveling symbologist has sparked a loyal fanbase and hit the right spot for readers and moviegoers seeking an unconventional superhero.
Armed with impressive frequent-flier miles and a tendency to embroil himself in international intrigue, Langdon (played in the movies by Tom Hanks) utilizes his mind and knowledge about ancient art, history and culture to take on theological controversies.
“It’s rare that you can make a movie that’s aimed at broad audi- ences all over the world and no one’s wearing spandex or capes,” Howard says. “You are presenting people with the opportunity to understand the world a little bit more.”
The third movie, Inferno, essentially cripples Langdon by taking away his greatest asset: At the start of the movie, he battles amnesia and has to follow clues related to Dante’s Divine Comedy to stop the release of a genetically mutated virus designed to take out much of mankind.
The vast majority of the 200 million copies Brown’s sold globally are his four Langdon books (80 million-plus just for The Da
Vinci Code), and while both movies were critically maligned, 2006’s The Da Vinci Code ($217.5 million) and 2009’s Angels & De
mons ($133.4 million) ended up box-office hits.
That kind of multimedia success “speaks to a desire from audiences to see heroes where their smarts win the day vs. their punching or kicking or flipping abilities,” says Erik Davis, managing editor for Movies.com and Fandango.com.
Adds Brown: “If you look back 200 years, you needed a club and a gun, and now you really need an intellect to survive in the world and Langdon is that man.”
Davis likens Langdon to a modern-day Indiana Jones, though he reminds Howard more of Sherlock Holmes. “Holmes is chillier and he’s almost Spocklike as a man of complete reason, and Langdon is a real humanist,” the director says. “He does get emotionally involved in the problem at hand, and in ( Inferno) he’s a part of the mystery and destabilized in a certain way. He develops an attachment to some of the characters involved that I don’t know if Holmes ever would.” Brown’s next Langdon book,
Origin, arrives Sept. 26, 2017. It’s too early to spill details, but Brown teases that major ethical topics and the art world are involved.
“Langdon is a character who moves well in those gray areas where the answers are not always clear,” he says. “That’s why I keep coming back to him, because I like writing about real-world paradoxes and challenging questions that are actually relevant.”