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
Criticism of The Da Vinci Code criticised the non-appearance of Blythe Brown and the vagueness of Dan Brown's evidence, saying, "He has presented himself as being a deep and thorough researcher...evidence in this case demonstrates that as regards DVC ["The Da Vinci Code"] that is simply not correct with respect to historical lectures...The reality of his research is that it is superficial." The judge also included a code in his judgment. Throughout the judgment, apparently random letters are italicised and these form the message. The letters in the first paragraphs spell "smithy code" and the rest appear as follows "jaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzv". This was subsequently decoded to read