Tom Hanks film 'Inferno' pushed back to 2016

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Tom Hanks film Inferno will not be released until 2016.

The feature was originally scheduled to debut December 18, 2015, but has been pushed back to Oct. 14, 2016. Sony Pictures may have made the change to avoid competition with Stars Wars: Episode VII, which will open on the original release date.

Inferno is based on Dan Brown's novel of the same name, and will see Hanks return as iconology and symbology professor Robert Langdon. The story follows Langdon after he wakes up in a hospital in Florence with no memory of the past few days and a mysterious cylinder in his jacket pocket. He and doctor Sienna Brooks find a version of Sandro Botticelli's Map of Hell in the container, and discover a deadly plot.

Ron Howard will direct the film from a screenplay by David Koepp, with Brian Grazer as producer. The director previously adapted Brown's novels The DaVinci Code (2006) and Angels & Demons (2009).

Hanks will appear in A Hologram for the King, Ithaca and St. James Place in 2015.