Angels & Demons (film) with author Dan Brown. In May 2006, following the release of the 2006 film adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code", Sony Pictures hired screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the film adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code", to adapt "Angels & Demons". Filming was originally to begin in February 2008 and was originally going to be released on December 19, 2008, but because of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, the film was pushed back for May 15, 2009. David Koepp rewrote the script before shooting began. Director Ron Howard chose to treat "Angels & Demons" as a sequel to
The Da Vinci Code mathematical message written beside his body and a pentagram drawn on his chest in his own blood. The novel explores an alternative religious history, whose central plot point is that the Merovingian kings of France were descended from the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, ideas derived from Clive Prince's "The Templar Revelation" (1997) and books by Margaret Starbird. The book also refers to "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" (1982) though Dan Brown has stated that it was not used as research material. "The Da Vinci Code" provoked a popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail