“Langdon has a line at some point about how he has always studied history and now he’s living it.”

It is Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing that has this line, not Hanks — not the actual main character of your movie!

I mean, honestly, isn’t this screenwriting 101? Wouldn’t any big time producer worth his or her salt try to “protect” their star? Don’t studio executives live to give this sort of note? Haven’t Ron Howard and Tom Hanks made enough movies by now to understand the basics?

You always hear stories about the meddling nature of movie development and how many of the above people drive each other nuts with wanting to change stuff, but in this case, that note would have been, I think, a good catch.

Langdon has a line at some point about how he has always studied history and now he’s living it. You don’t see that spark in Hanks, that he’s moved from the academic world of studying symbols into a place where he’s unraveling one of the biggest mysteries of all time.

Conversely, Hanks could have played it as a man who has always been in the academic world, working only with words and pictures, and now he’s plunged into a situation where he’s in danger of being imprisoned for murder and then ends up on the run for his life. It would be the classic Hitchcock scenario of an ordinary man who steps into a nightmare.

The one actor that Hanks is most often compared to is Jimmy Stewart. In fact, people often say that Hanks is our generation’s Stewart, the ordinary, decent man that represents us all. But imagine Stewart playing this role. He would have been great. Stewart excelled at the ordinary man in extraordinary situations and would have been fantastic as Langdon.

Also, for a comparison of how the book’s message was softened for the film, read this analysis. However, this guy thinks the movie was more aggressive than the book.