Angels & Demons is a 2009 American mystery thriller film directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman and David Koepp, based on Dan Brown's 2000 novel of the same title. In the film version Father Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), the camerlengo or administrator for the Holy See, was orphaned as a boy and was cared by the man who became Pope Pius XVI. The camerlengo takes temporary control of the Vatican while the papal conclave elect a new pope on the sudden death of Pope Pius XVI. Meanwhile, a plot has been hatched by McKenna to kill favoured cardinals because he believes the power of the church is waning and hatches a plot to have people turn about from science and back to the church. In the book version, the camerlengo is the biological son of Pope Pius XVI but grew up not knowing that.