With Angels & Demons fast approaching for release on May 15, it's no surprise Variety reports that Columbia Pictures has jumped ahead about 5 months to begin negotiations for Dan Brown's third novel in the Robert Langdon centered series, The Lost Symbol.

The book isn't set to be published until September 15, but since Sony has the rights to the Robert Langdon character, they are acting fast to finalize a deal. Since negotiations have just began, there's no official word on the return of Tom Hanks, or series director Ron Howard returning, but since this franchise is such a huge investment and payoff for Columbia Pictures, I imagine they will do everything in their power to get them back for a third go-round.

Seriously though, how much trouble can a symbologist get into? I mean it's the same damn problem with something like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. You're investigating a crime scene. How dangerous can that be? Robert Langdon needs to calm down or he's going to get into some Mr. Bean type of trouble here before too long. Oh, he's so wacky!

Angels & Demons releases this summer on May 15. Check out the trailer right here.

Here's the new poster for Sony Pictures blockbuster prequel, Angels & Demons, with Tom Hanks reprising his role as symbologist Robert Langdon from the 2005 film The Da Vinci Code. While the poster isn't anything remarkable, it's a little harder to market a movie that doesn't have some sort of clear artifact or plot device to easily illustrate. The Da Vinci Code marketing was easy because of all the iconic pieces of art that could be used, and several more items from the story that lead Langdon from one clue to the next. My personal favorite from The Da Vinci Code marketing was a poster seen only at Las Vegas ShoWest theater exhibition conference that you can see right here. My only wish was that they would have made it so that you could only see the "So dark the con of man" when the poster was under blacklight and it was positioned in the lower right hand corner like it's supposed to be.

As I commented, when the trailer was released awhile back, this looks like it could trump its predecessor. And of course the ole Christian backlash will come sooner or later to ensure that all those who weren't going to see the movie still don't see it, and those planning on the movie may still do so, but with a bit more spite. Enjoy, you blasphemous buffoons!

Let's be honest here, Ron Howard's adaptation of Dan Brown's best selling novel The Da Vinci Code, was nothing to marvel at. It wasn't terrible by any means, but it wasn't captivating either. I was expecting more of the same when it came time for the prequel, Angels and Demons, to go into production. The teaser trailer and the Super Bowl spot for the film pretty much confirmed that for me.

And then comes this new trailer that sweeps the rug out from under me. Whoever edited this trailer should edit every trailer from here on out. It does exactly what a trailer is supposed to do: get people excited to see the movie (and that's coming from someone who had little interest and no excitement to see it). My friends and I have talked before about how trailers are better than the movies most of the time, and are inherently misleading. I hope this isn't the case with this one. Check it out below. Does this get you excited for Angels and Demons?