In a Theater Near You
Religious boycotts, literary lawsuits, even Tom Hanks's haircut. It seems there hasn't been a single element of The Da Vinci Code that hasn't sparked some kind of controversy. And controversy, as Hollywood well knows, is a good thing. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christrode a religious grudge match between Christians and Jews to cable-TV supremacy two years ago and a $600 million-plus box-office take worldwide. "I say to our friends at the Vatican, 'Bring it on,'" joked John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theatre Owners at a recent movie-industry conference.
Sony Pictures Entertainment, the studio behind the movie, has tried to manage the backlash, spinning the movie as a nail-biting thriller; a popcorn flick that only incidentally calls into question the entire premise of Christianity. The movie is a death-defying quest by a symbologist (Tom Hanks) and cryptologist (Audrey Tautou) to crack the code that reveals the secret. "A thriller," emphasizes Jim Kennedy, a Sony spokesman, "not a religious tract or historical documentary."
A mutating monk. Sony also was aware that The Code could be used as further fodder for conspiracy theorists who believe that Hollywood's heavily Jewish movie industry has an anti-Christian bias--an accusation frequently made by religious groups. To offset that and other criticism, Sony took the novel approach of setting up a website where Da Vinci Code detractors--not just those of a religious bent but anyone who has a beef with the movie--could "discuss" the story and vent about the studio. Author Dan Brown, whose "issues" with the Roman Catholic Church are well documented, isn't exactly thrilled. And he isn't alone. Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic society represented in the movie by a self-mutilating, murderous albino monk, asked for an advance screening of the film and a disclaimer at the beginning that states it is fiction. That was a nonstarter, so the group beefed up its website and is using the movie as a peg for republishing its treatise, "The Way."
Press screenings also have been held off until the last minute, thwarting any early reviews of the $125 million movie, which premieres this week at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Sony says it isn't trying to stave off criticism, just protect what little mystery the movie may have left. "The filmmakers wanted to preserve what little surprise they could," says an executive close to the movie, adding that unlike smaller movies that screen early, there's no need to build word of mouth for The Code.
So what's left to discover for a Da Vinci-saturated public? Word is that there are several little gems embedded into the film to give code crackers a fix. And, there is always Tom Hanks's hair.
This story appears in the May 22, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
advertisement
