Tom Hanks Has The Most Brutally Honest Take On The Da Vinci Code Trilogy

In a 2022 profile written by the New York Times, Tom Hanks spoke rather bluntly about his time as Robert Langdon. "Yeah, those Robert Langdon sequels are hooey," Hanks said. "'The Da Vinci Code' was hooey."

Hanks elaborated, citing the ways in which the trilogy played fast and loose with history and European geography so that Langdon would feasibly be able to pick up on the patterns and symbols that drive forward both the films and the books. This isn't a problem for Hanks per se, but the movies would have had to make up for it at the box office. Hanks said, "There's nothing wrong with good commerce, provided it is good commerce."

And herein lies the problem. Despite its numerous plot holes and inconsistencies, "The Da Vinci Code" was an unqualified box-office smash, earning more than $760 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo). Unfortunately, its sequels were an exercise in diminishing returns. "Inferno," the trilogy's third film, was a big financial disappointment in North America (via Forbes). "By the time we made the third," Hanks said, "we proved that it wasn't such good commerce."

Still, Hanks isn't salty about his experience. "It was my 40th-something birthday," he explained when talking about working on the first film. "We were shooting in the Louvre at night. I changed my pants in front of the Mona Lisa! They brought me a birthday cake in the Grand Salon! Who gets to have that experience?" You do, Mr. Hanks. You do.