The Heat Is On

Tom Hanks and filmmaker Ron Howard lead an all-star blockbuster road show To marina bay sands.

- Gary Jones

Hollywood royalty roared into Singapore in June when Marina Bay Sands – sister property of The Venetian and The Palazzo Las Vegas , and Sands Bethlehem – hosted the inaugural Sony Pictures Summit. Comic actress Melissa McCarthy, co-star of the long awaited Ghost busters reboot, swooped in with the film’s director, Paul feig. Action-movie maestro Antoine fuqua, helmsman of this year’s remake of classic 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, also rode into town.

However, the lion’s share of the limelight was taken by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard, the celebrated actor-and director duo behind what will surely be one of the most spectacular blockbusters of 2016.

Based on the 2013 novel of the same name by best selling author Dan Brown, Inferno is the sequel to silver screen mystery thrillers The Da Vinci Code (2006) and Angels & Demons (2009) and – like its predecessors – fuses art history, secret societies, offbeat science and lashings of suspense. Hero of the hour (more than two hours, in fact) is the brilliant yet modest Harvard University professor of religious iconology and symbology Robert Langdon, a role Hanks embraces for the third time. With the fate of all humanity at stake, the adventurous academic must race against the clock to solve a puzzle centred on Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s epic 14th-century masterpiece “The Divine Comedy.”

“Robert Langdon is a fabulous character to play,” enthuses Hanks, whose films have taken more than US$8.5 billion at box offices worldwide, placing him among the highest-grossing actors on the planet – ever. “He’s got no baggage; he’s smart. Everybody says, ‘Oh, the symbologist is here,’ when I walk into the room. Everybody’s paying attention to me.”