If the marketer's credo "any publicity is good publicity" is true, then The Da Vinci Code should be riding high. But now that Hollywood's long-shrouded, hyped-to-the-heavens thriller has finally been seen publicly – most notably to catcalls at the Cannes Film Festival – that slogan is undergoing a serious test.
So, is Da Vinci a dud?
The film adaptation of Dan Brown's controversial novel, which posits that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and produced a line of offspring reaching to today, opens worldwide Friday after Wednesday's tepid debut at the French festival. Meanwhile, a few Christian groups around the globe have threatened boycotts against summer's most-anticipated movie.
Still, there's no debating the power of the franchise. The novel has sold more than 60 million copies and spawned a cottage industry of related books, TV specials, even travel tours. Many of the book's most passionate fans are women; so far, many of the movie's unmoved critics are men.
There's no debating the film's star power, either: Actor Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard are both Oscar winners and two of Hollywood's biggest names.
Letting film speak
But Sony Pictures has rolled the dice on an unprecedented marketing strategy – hide the film and pump up the mystery.
"There was an inordinate amount of interest in this film, and we wanted to contain the excitement and anticipation," Valerie Van Galder, Sony's president of domestic marketing, told The New York Times. "We wanted people to see the movie for themselves and not react to months of endless debate about the movie."
To that end, the studio held just a trickle of test screenings and did not allow critics to see the film before Tuesday night, preferring to give it the big splash in Cannes. In contrast, one of this summer's other blockbusters, Pixar's animated Cars, has already screened once locally ahead of its June 9 opening. It's not uncommon for major summer movies to have sneak previews a week or more before their debuts.
Speaking at a Cannes news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Howard said Da Vinci wasn't finished until just a few days ago; hence, the limited early screenings.
Planning protests
But while next to nobody was seeing the film, everyone was talking about it. Christian groups in India, South Korea, Thailand and Greece, among other places, have urged protests and boycotts, echoing a Vatican official's call last month.
Because of the outcry, much of it from Catholics upset by the book's portrayal of the ultraconservative Opus Dei organization, Sony has had to take a much different approach to marketing than did Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Steve Humphries-Brooks, who teaches courses on religion in film at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., said this week that he expects Da Vinci to out-perform The Passion's $370 million domestic total.
"With Passion, Hollywood discovered that there are two sides to the Christian divide. People made an awful lot of money appealing to the evangelical market with Passion. This is the other side," he said.
In addition, some experts feel that seeing a movie on screen will help soften the concrete feel of the printed page.
"Some people are taking the book as the gospel truth," says Martin Grove, box-office analyst for Hollywood Reporter Online. "The movie will help reinforce that it's fiction. Seeing it on the big screen with a huge mainstream star like Tom Hanks and a big mainstream director like Ron Howard, audiences will see it as fictional storytelling."
Seeing stars
Dr. Humphries-Brooks agrees that the star power is key: "Ron Howard is America's darling, the quintessential American director with films like Apollo 13. And no one ever forgets that he was Andy Griffith's Opie and Happy Days' Richie. And Tom Hanks is Mr. America. And Audrey Tautou was the adorable Amélie.
"So we've got Opie directing Forrest Gump and Amélie, together for the first time."
Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations, agrees that the filmmakers made smart casting choices and predicts a big opening. But, he says, the key to Da Vinci's long-term success lies in the coming weeks.
"Second weekend is the true test. Word-of-mouth will tell. The second weekend is Memorial Day weekend, which is good for everyone. But it will be up against X-Men 3," he said. "It's often said that there's no such thing as bad publicity, which isn't always true. But it may be true in this case."
Staff writer Charles Ealy in Cannes, France, contributed to this report.
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