Today, it was announced that Dan Brown will publish a new book about genius symbologist Robert Langdon. It’s called Origin and it will delve into “the dangerous intersection of humankind’s two most enduring questions, and the earth-shaking discovery that will answer them.†The novel will, of course, incorporate “symbology, science, religion, history, art, and architecture,†which is a nice way of saying that it’ll involve some bonkers plot to save the world that revolves around [insert famous novel/work of art/statue/museum you went to once on a field trip]. Meanwhile, the latest Dan Brown movie starring Tom Hanks — this one is based on his Dante-focused novel Inferno, because The Lost Symbol apparently wasn’t worth it — is coming to a screen near you in just a few weeks. Now, we know it must be exhausting to keep cranking out the best sellers, so we have a few suggestions for the next plots Dan Brown (and then Tom Hanks) could tackle.
1. Wonder: On vacation in Dubai, Robert Langdon discovers a mysterious plot to hoard the world’s water and reestablish the tenets of feudalism. It’s led, of course, by a mysterious cult focused on finding the former location of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon — they’re not in Babylon, of course, they’re in … Belarus! Thanks to the help of a spunky brunette (Ed note: to be played by Daisy Ridley in the film), his Mickey Mouse watch, and a new theory about prime numbers, Langdon saves the day once again!
2. Hateful Things: Sitting in a ramen shop in Tokyo, Robert Langdon follows a trail of clues that lead him to a new understanding of Sei Shonagon’s 10th-century classic, The Pillow Book, which, as it turns out, contains the secrets of artificial intelligence. Langdon is saved from robotic cultists by a spunky brunette (Ed note: to be played by Emma Watson in the film), who whisks him off to mountains of Hokkaido, where they discover a conspiracy that entangles Digimon, Fermat’s Last Theorem, and Vulcanology.
3. Or Not to Be: Was Shakespeare’s greatest soliloquy simply a statement about the limited scope of human existence, or was it … a coded syntactical map of the North Sea that hints at the last known location of real-life dragons? Robert Langdon commandeers a fishing boat owned by a spunky brunette (Ed note: to be played by Hailee Steinfeld in the film) to find out. Along the way, we learn about his intimate knowledge of oceanology, Brexit, and the Danish version of The Killing, all in time to stop a cult of murderous Swedes that believe the Norse gods still walk among us (spoiler alert: they do!).
4. Reports of My Death: Arriving in Denver for an academic conference, the eagle-eyed Robert Langdon discovers something mysterious about its airport. Yes, the Illuminati are afoot, and this time they’re on the offensive against Langdon himself. Luckily, he takes cover in a mountain cabin, where he discovers that Mark Twain was trying to tell the world something terrible about a climate apocalypse in his manuscript for Huckleberry Finn. Langdon solves the case, but not without the help of chaos theory, aeronautics, and the long-lost descendant of the real Tom Sawyer, who, coincidentally, is now a river boat captain, and also a spunky brunette (Ed note: to be played by Sarah Hyland in the film).
5. Truth Universally Acknowledged: After saving the world many times, Langdon retires to the British countryside, until a series of mysterious deaths in the local village set his conspiracy senses tingling. Yes, a secret cabal of British noblemen known as the Suitors are intent pushing women’s rights back a millennium, and the only person who warned us of their presence was Jane Austen, centuries ago. Langdon rushes to London, where he meets a visiting spunky brunette (Ed note: to be played by Selena Gomez in the film), and the two rush off to the national archives, where he digs up dirt on the Sacred Feminine, 15th-century witch hunts, and mind control. A thrilling finale has him facing off with a Mr. Darcy hologram at the top of Big Ben.
6. The Machu Picchu Secret: While touring the Andes, Langdon catches wind of a conspiracy involving Incan ritual and also potato prices. Thankfully, he’s aided by a spunky brunette (Ed note: to be played by Eleven from Stranger Things in the film), an intimate knowledge of epidemiology, and an old VHS tape of Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove, which helps him defeat a bunch of cultists/big agriculture executives’ plot to blot out the sun.
7. One Small Step: Did we really go to the moon, or did it all take place on a Hollywood soundstage? Anyone who knows Robert Langdon well enough knows that the real answer is: neither! U.S. astronauts were actually part of a much bigger conspiracy to open a wormhole, as depicted in the scrolls of Nostradamus, and were only stopped by the heroic work of Jackie Kennedy, who was a deep-undercover anti-Illuminati agent. When the space program tries to open wormhole once again, Langdon teams up with a spunky brunette (Ed note: to be played by the stolen baby from The Light Between Oceans film) to break into NASA’s Cape Canaveral base, in a mystery that can only be solved with the help of thermodynamics, Medieval Latin, and a trip to the catacombs under the Small World ride at Disney World.