It's the film that has got everyone talking long before its release, for in a world of conspiracy theorists, "The Da Vinci Code" has the conspiracy theory to beat them all.
So intriguing is the book's central contention that descendants of Jesus Christ survive today that 50 million copies have been sold since its publication in 2003 and it has been translated into 44 languages.
US director Ron Howard, already crowned with an Oscar for "A Beautiful Mind", would seem to have hit on a sure-fire box office winner by adapting Dan Brown's bestselling book onto the big screen.
And the 125-million-dollar movie has been kept jealously under wraps ahead of its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday and release across France, before it is seen worldwide on Friday.
Even though the stars, Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, as well as Howard have shied away from giving many interviews, the controversy surrounding the book has created a buzz of interest.
But Howard told journalists in Los Angeles recently that he had mixed feelings about the controversy, saying: "It's not my nature at all to be confrontational, combative or provocative.
"I chose this story because I thought that many of the ideas in this novel were very thought-provoking and very intriguing."
Few clues about the film have been leaked ahead of its release, although there is just enough tantalising detail to keep appetites whetted.
The Oscar-winning Hanks beat off competition from other Hollywood names like George Clooney and Russell Crowe to take the role of Robert Langdon, a symbologist called in when the curator of the Louvre museum is found murdered, his body splayed out in a copy of Leonardo Da Vinci's drawing "The Man of Vitruve."
Langdon, with the help of the curator's cryptologist grand-daughter Sophie Neveu played by Tautou, are soon caught up in a web of intrigue, racing against time to decode symbols hidden in Da Vinci's work in a trail which takes them from Paris to London and then Scotland.
All the signs point to a centuries-old mystery supposedly covered up by a secretive Vatican-backed organisation, which is ready to do anything to stop the world discovering a truth which could shake the very foundations of the Church.
The truth, according to Brown's novel, is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children with her, whose descendants still survive and are venerated and protected as Christ's direct bloodline.
Amid anger by some religious groups, Brown has been at pains to point out that the work is a fiction and merely a spring board for a discussion about Christianity.
Howard has also sought to fend off criticism, particularly from the Opus Dei, the powerful organisation named in the book, refusing to its request for a disclaimer. And in his own way he has added to the enigma.
"I laid out clues in a lot of different scenes," Howard said. "Some of them are reflective of Langdon's journey. Some are reflective of Sophie's journey. Some reflect the underlying threats that exist in the scene.
"Sometimes you have to freeze the frame to find it."
British actor Paul Bettany, who plays the murderous albino monk Silas who is seen flagellating himself, also entered into the spirit of things by wearing a pain-inducing barbed cilice under his robes.It was just "from time to time to remind him of what the character was going through," Howard told the LA Times. "I didn't want these characters just to be chess pieces in a game."
The Louvre gave unprecedented permission for Howard to film inside the building renting out the space for some 24,000 euros a day, but Westminster Abbey in London declined, allowing outside shots only and forcing the crew to use Lincoln Cathedral instead.
Ian McKellen plays Sir Leigh Teabing, a British expert on the Holy Grail, while French actor Jean Reno has taken on the role of the police chief Bezu Fache in charge of the murder investigation.
Tautou, of "Amelie" fame, was chosen over other French actresses such as Amira Casar and Vanessa Paradis.
The 26-year-old was so convinced that she wouldn't be picked she took a picture of Hanks and Howard after reading for the role in Los Angeles to prove that she had met them.
Now amid the frenzy surrounding the film, she told France's weekly cinema magazine Studio earlier this year that she is worried whether she will be able to retain her anonymity.
"My biggest fear given the size and expectations surrounding this project is about celebrity and popularity. I hope I will be able to continue to lead the same life as today," she said. - AFP
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