The Da Vinci Code's Dan Brown Is Heading To ABC With Ron Howard

As a nation, we used to be really into codes and messages hidden inside of American symbolism, which turned Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code into a mega-bestseller. But times have changed, and now we’re totally into the government treating our privacy like garbage. So it makes perfect sense that 20th Century Fox and Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment are heading back in Brown’s library to turn his techno-thriller Digital Fortress into a TV series.

ABC has given Digital Fortress a put pilot, meaning the network has to show audiences a pilot, with a stiff penalty attached if they don’t. And given how well adaptations of Brown’s work have done on the big screen, it’s silly to think ABC will balk on this topical project. Unless someone stops them for saying too much.

Digital Fortress centers on the cat-and-mouse relationship between an NSA cryptographer named Susan Fletcher and a former NSA employee named Ensei Tankado, who is putting the government’s most consequential secrets up for auction. He has his own stiff penalties attached if he should be killed. There are double-crossers and twists throughout, and it deals with a lot of – you guessed it – questions of governmental superiority when it comes to information.

The pilot is being written by Outlaw Country’s Rachel Abramowitz and Josh Goldin, the latter of which also co-wrote Sam Raimi’s Darkman. Are you guys ready to relive Edward Snowden on ABC with a completely fabricated storyline? Stay tuned for casting info on this code-ally awesome sounding adaptation.