Ron Howard accuses Pope of scuppering Dan Brown movie
Vatican condemns director for bad faith publicity grab
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Hollywood film director and former Fonz sidekick Ron Howard has accused the Vatican of a dark plot to knobble his latest blockbuster Dan Brown adaptation, Angels and Demons.
Howard reckons the Pope and his helpers used "back channels" to scupper attempts to film around key landmarks in Rome. The production team had already been banned from filming in the Vatican.
Angels and Demons is the predecessor book to The Da Vinci Code. In it, the suave handsome academic Robert Langdon thwarts a plot conspiracy to destroy the Vatican using a flask of antimatter. Along the way, a succession of candidates for the vacant position of Vicar of Rome are discovered murdered, and all sorts of other un-Christian behaviour exposed.
The Vatican has a bit of problem with Dan Brown's work, perceiving it as somewhat anti-catholic in its outlook. This has been put down to his tendency to portray elements of the church embarking on murderous attempts to suppress what it sees as threats to its monopoly on truth. The Da Vinci Code famously portrayed the Universal Church as nothing but a patriarchal plot to suppress the "truth" that Jesus had fathered children with biblical era ex-good time girl Mary Magdalene, and that his descendants walked the Earth to this day. In Scotland, to be exact.
Of course, it may be that the organisation responsible for some of the greatest works of art and literature in Western civilisation simply thinks Brown's books and the films based on them are a bit crap. And tourist authorities in Rome may think they've got enough on their hands dealing with the faithful visiting Il Papa without having to deal with hordes of film fans who seem unable to distinguish fact from cinematic fiction.
According to the BBC, Howard told a news conference: "When you come to film in Rome, the official statement to you is that the Vatican has no influence.
"Everything progressed very smoothly, but unofficially a couple of days before we were to start filming in several of our locations, it was explained to us that through back channels and so forth that the Vatican had exerted some influence."
Shockingly, said Howard, the Church pulled strings to ensure that the filmmakers could not film in two buildings in Rome... large buildings, with crosses on the top. You know, churches.
For its part, the Vatican has shown it is fully cognisant of the powers of the dark side - or the Hollywood publicity machine in this instance - with a Vatican spokesman condemning Howard's statements as a lame attempt to drum up publicity for the film. ®
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COMMENTS
Don't be cruel
to Opie,he is a nice wee boy .
He will grow up to be successful in whatever career he decides on.
Being a good writer does not mean being technically accurate
Digital Fortress, the only book I've almost managed to finish by Dan Brown, is bad, not because it's technically inaccurate, but simply because it's absurd, and written in an awful way. How many books out there are they with so many one-page chapters? Just to try to keep the reader into some kind of thrill.
But it's obvious that the almighty CIA killer, with a perfect record, no pity, and high tech stuff, won't ever be able to touch the handsome hero, however many times DB points out he's just a normal teacher. Though he's got something in him of Superman, because he's able to hear the sound of a pistol above the noise of two engines - a pistol we've been told has a silencer. Cheap gimmicks, one after the other, to make a boring and predictable chase sound interesting.
Or the head of the NSA, using his own personal cell phone to anonymously contact a Japanese company and illegally sell them a supersecret program. It's not technically inaccurate - but gosh, how can I believe that, for one second? The Japanese company calling him back, so he can deliver a smart-ass answer when he's busy trying to kill somebody? And it takes time, only because their phone doesn't have a LED display for caller ID? Please - this is not technically inaccurate in any way, only so stupid, the mind boggles.
How could one believe it for one second, from what has been painstakingly described, on hundreds of pages, as the most sensitive and secure-conscious agency ever?
I've read technically inaccurate books which I thorougly enjoyed, because they were credible, because they did have an internal logic, and their characters had some depth. And they didn't require not only to suspend disbelief with the Real World, but also with the book's previous assertions themselves.
Of course, if you have the attention-span of a common fly, you might be able to overcome those easily.
re: re: Saved by the Church!
> > Also, a "flask of antimatter"? Do you get these at Home Depot or something?
> Yes sir! Aisle three, next to the unobtanium!
"uh, I think we're supposed to be getting some of those in next week..."
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