The Recasting Couch: Ep. 78 The DaVinci Code

The Recasting Couch Movie Podcast

This week we recast the adaptation of the Dan Brown novel, The DaVinci Code. A really good book that was turned into a pretty good movie. Directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, and Audrey Tautou, this movie’s got pretty much everything you want in a big blockbuster, including huge box office sales and poor critical reception. Mike and I continue to ponder Rotten Tomatoes scores that don’t seem to reflect reality. The scores were so low, but the movie made so much money that they made two more! Either most of the people who went hate-watched the movie, or it was a bit better than the score would reflect.

On the podcast, we debate not only the merits of Rotten Tomatoes, but the casting of Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon. I personally think he’s miscast here, and Mike can’t see passed his Hanks-love to admit it. One thing we both agree upon, however, is the strength of the performance of the auxiliary characters. Jean Reno, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina and Paul Bettany round out this cast beautifully. No surprise this movie was cast by the gold standard of casting directors, Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirschenson. We also shout out the screenplay writer, although not by name, so I wanted to make sure we had it here, Akiva Goldsman. We both read this book, and it’s pretty dense with the history and symbology, and we think Akiva absolutely killed it. Somehow finding a way to condense all of it into a pretty tight 2-hour flick that leaves us feeling the same way we did when we red the book.

Thanks for listening everyone! Once again, if you would like to chat about our picks, or submit your own, track us down on twitter and speak your mind (@recastingpod). If you want to send us feedback or request movies for us to recast in the future, email us at [e-mail]. Make sure you tell some friends about the show, and start playing the recasting game amongst yourselves! Especially if you’re at a party with a bunch of people hanging around, it’s a great way to get a conversation going. If you get a chance, leave us a 5 star rating on iTunes. That helps spread the word about the show and bumps us up in the podcast listings.

Link to IMDB

Link to Amazon