Angels & Demons to be big, and not just in Japan

With Harry Potter gone, this year's book business is all about two words: Dan Brown. The sequel to The Da Vinci Code is coming in September with the title The Lost Symbol and it's expected to sell millions and millions of copies by Christmas.

Sony will then get The Lost Symbol into cinemas as fast as it can. If The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons are anything to go by, the strategy is not so much a secret code as a perfectly-designed marketing formula that involves books, websites, games and, especially in Asia, mobile phone entertainment. Dan Brown puzzles and ambigrams are big in Japan.

LANGUAGE: "Big in Japan" was a contemptuous phrase used when talking about rock bands that had failed in the US and the UK back in the days when Japanese pop culture was not very cool in the English-speaking world. So, although a group might have thousands of Japanese fans, it was not considered really successful. You see, the band was only big in Japan.

But back to Angels & Demons, the focus of our "Dan Brown Special Report" this week. What do the critics think of it? Let's have a quick look:

• The Daily Telegraph had expected something better than The Da Vinci Code and it is disappointed:  "It's in some ways a marginal improvement, or at least something you can giggle your way through without quite such a sense of dismay."


• The Chicago Tribune complains that the book doesn't work as a film: "Once again Hanks has nothing to play except generic concern, as he and his latest comely but sexual-tension-free partner in sleuthing (an Italian particle physicist played by Ayelet Zurer) run around Rome hunting for bloodthirsty members of the Illuminati."


• The Times isn't happy with the filmmaking: "The constant cutting from angle to new angle makes it difficult to appraise or appreciate the performances — which is a pity because in Skarsgård, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Thure Lindhardt, Howard has assembled an impressive supporting cast of northern European acting talent."

In the end, it's the numbers, not the reviews, that matter in the film business. Three years ago, The Da Vinci Code earned $77 million on its opening weekend in the US and went on to make an impressive $750 million worldwide. With both Tom Hanks and Ron Howard back in their roles as star and director, Spotlight Online predicts a $60 million opening weekend for Angels & Demons. It's going to be big, and not just in Japan.