Da Vinci Code Box Office

Let me start off with 100% disclosure: I didn't read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

I tried several times but the novel read like hastily scribbled notes ... as though Brown had barely enough time to jot down chapter points on paper napkins following his in-flight meals during "research" jaunts between Rome, Paris, London, etc., without later bothering to flesh out the spotty, follow-the-author dialogue or include even a smidgeon of digestible prose.

Maybe Brown was already thinking ahead to a movie deal ... after all, Hollywood is notorious for seducing novelists with huge checks and then mutilating a carefully-crafted work with car crashes, gratuitous nudity and special effects to achieve "good box office."

No matter. We can only guess how much Brown received from the film's $125,000,000 budget (it's estimated Brown earned $50 million from book sales alone) ... but the figure was certainly a good deal less than what Tom Hanks received for playing the lead role, and for his part Hanks isn't even giving interviews.

While The Da Vinci Code opens today here in the US, showings over the past two days in Europe and the Middle East have drawn remarkably poor reviews, not to mention scathing criticism from academic theologians protesting the film's reckless disregard for historical evidence.

Not that Dan Brown, with his sackfuls of money and TV talk show appearances, is likely to be much worried over such small details.

You can read more reviews here:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0382625/usercomments