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Tom Hanks is getting honest about his filmography.
The actor spoke with The New York Times about his role as Robert Langdon in “The Da Vinci Code” movies, a franchise he admits was “hooey”. When asked whether it was “cynical” to make two follow-up movies to the massive box office success that was “The Da Vinci Code”, Hanks said it was a “commercial enterprise”.
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“Oh, God, that was a commercial enterprise, Yeah, those Robert Langdon sequels are hooey. The Da Vinci Code was hooey,” he explained. “I mean, Dan Brown, God bless him, says, ‘Here is a sculpture in a place in Paris! No, it’s way over there. See how a cross is formed on a map? Well, it’s sort of a cross.’ Those are delightful scavenger hunts that are about as accurate to history as the James Bond movies are to espionage. But they’re as cynical as a crossword puzzle.”
The films were based on the popular book series by the author.
He continued, “All we were doing is promising a diversion. There’s nothing wrong with good commerce, provided it is good commerce. By the time we made the third one, we proved that it wasn’t such good commerce.”
The first film made $760 million against a $125 million budget, “Angels & Demons” made $485 million against a $150 million budget, and “Inferno” only made $220 million against a $75 million budget.
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While the films may have been merely diversions, Hanks still enjoyed his experience celebrating his birthday on the set of the film – the Louvre.
“Let me tell you something else about ‘The Da Vinci Code’. It was my 40th-something birthday. We were shooting in the Louvre at night. I changed my pants in front of the Mona Lisa!” said Hanks. “They brought me a birthday cake in the Grand Salon! Who gets to have that experience? Any cynicism there? Hell no!”
