Inferno trailer teaser: Tom Hanks plays Robert Langdon who is out to save humanity

Sony Pictures has released the first teaser of its upcoming film Inferno, which is being directed by Ron Howard, a day ahead of the scheduled release of the actual trailer on 10 May. The movie is adapted from Dan Brown's 2013 novel by the same name.

Actor Tom Hanks will reprise the role of Robert Langdon – a Harvard symbologist who wakes up in an Italian hospital with no memory of what transpired over the last few days – for the third time. In the movie fans will see Langdon team up with Sienna Brooks (played by Felicity Jones) to regain is lost memory. The duo will be a target of a major manhunt and will be racing against time – while travelling throughout Europe – to solve riddles and foil a deadly plot against humanity.

The opening scene of the teaser shows Langdon holding a detonator some sorts as the voice-over says: "There is a switch... if you throw it half the people on earth will die." The voice continues: "If you don't then in a 100 years the human race will be extinct." The video then asks viewers: "Would you throw the switch?"

The movie franchise first released The Da Vinci Code in the Langdon series in 2006, which was followed by Angels And Demons in 2009. Sony Pictures initially planned to adapt the third novel The Lost Symbol for the third chapter of the instalment. The final draft of the script was expected to be in by mid-2013, however, during the time the makers of the film announced that it would adapt Inferno instead, which will be released in 2016.

The cast of the movie includes Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan as Harry Sims, Omar Sy as Christoph Bruder, Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Dr Elizabeth Sinskey and Ben Foster will play Bertrand Zobrist, the main antagonist.

The movie is scheduled to release in theatres in the US on 28 October 2016.