Robert Langdon is coming to Peacock in an all-new series starring Ashley Zukerman.
Dan Brown’s Langdon has been ordered for a full season to air on Peacock, the NBCUniversal powered streaming service. The series will follow the ongoing adventures of Robert Langdon, the famed symbologist and protagonist in the novels of Dan Brown which include The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. Dan Brown’s Langdon will closely follow the events that occur in Brown’s novel The Lost Symbol, the only Langdon book thus far to not have received a big screen adaptation.
The pilot for the series was originally developed for NBC under the title Langdon and produced by CBS Studios and Imagine Television Studios alongside Universal Television. The pilot so impressed NBCUniversal Chairman of Television and Streaming, Susan Rovner, that she ordered a full season to air direct to Peacock. Rovner said of the pickup:
The team was blown away by this pilot and its enormous potential to become a big, binge-worthy hit, and our new structure enables us to move it to Peacock and give it every opportunity to make that happen. Our ability to pick up a great show is no longer limited by the confines of a network schedule, giving us the freedom to say ‘yes’ to shows we love and then find them the perfect home across our portfolio.
Dan Brown’s Langdon follows Robert Langdon as he uses his unique knowledge to decipher cryptic puzzles in his search through Washington DC for a missing Masonic Pyramid. Or at least, that’s the plot for the novel The Lost Symbol. Most novels being adapted to television often get extensive rewrites, so it’s not yet clear how closely Dan Brown’s Langdon will follow the source material.
The series is written by Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie who have previously worked together on multiple projects including Star Trek: Discovery and Criminal Minds. The series will star Zukerman as Robert Langdon, as well as Valorie Curry (Blair Witch, The Tick), Rick Gonzalez (Arrow), and Eddie Izzard (Hannibal).
Zukerman will be the second actor to portray Robert Langdon in live-action adaptations. The character was previously played by Tom Hanks in all three big screen films, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and Inferno. All three films were directed by Ron Howard for Imagine Entertainment. How much Dan Brown’s Langdon will draw from the three preceding films is unclear, but with Howard’s involvement, the series will likely be an extension of the Langdon-verse.
As an unabashed fan of the Robert Langdon novels, I’m very excited for Dan Brown’s Langdon. Though I will easily admit that the books aren’t high art, they are fun reads and provide an excellent escape from reality. Brown’s prose can be stodgy at times, but he knows how to craft an excellent thriller, and even his puzzles are imaginative and fun. I may have to reactivate my Peacock subscription just to check this one out.
