The Da Vinci Code is a 2006 mystery thriller film directed by Ron Howard, written by Akiva Goldsman, and based on Dan Brown's 2003 novel of the same name. The first in the Robert Langdon film series, the film stars Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Jürgen Prochnow, Jean Reno, and Paul Bettany.
In the film, Robert Langdon, a professor of religious symbology from Harvard University, is the prime suspect in the grisly and unusual murder of Louvre curator Jacques Saunière. On the body, the police find a disconcerting cipher and start an investigation. Langdon escapes with the assistance of police cryptologist Sophie Neveu, and they begin a quest for the legendary Holy Grail. Sir Leigh Teabing, a noted British Grail historian, tells them that the actual Holy Grail is explicitly encoded in Leonardo da Vinci's wall painting The Last Supper. Also searching for the Grail is a secret cabal within Opus Dei, an actual prelature of the Holy See, who wish to keep the true Grail a secret to prevent the destruction of Christianity.
The film, like the book, was considered controversial. It was met with especially harsh criticism by the Catholic Church for the accusation that it is behind a two-thousand-year-old cover-up concerning what the Holy Grail really is and the concept that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married, producing a daughter, as well as its treatment of the organizations Priory of Sion and Opus Dei. Many members urged the laity to boycott the film. In the book, Brown states that the Priory of Sion and "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate".
The Da Vinci Code premiered as the opening film of the 59th Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2006, and was theatrically released in the United States on May 19. The film received generally negative reviews from critics, but was a commercial success, grossing $224 million in its worldwide opening weekend and an initial total of $760 million worldwide against a $125 million production budget, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 2006, as well as Howard's highest-grossing film to date. It was followed by two sequels, both directed by Howard: Angels & Demons (2009) and Inferno (2016).
Plot
Louvre curator Jacques Saunière is pursued by Silas, an albino Catholic monk who demands the location of the "keystone" to find and destroy the Holy Grail. Saunière gives him a false lead and is murdered. The police find his body posed like Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. Police captain Bezu Fache summons Robert Langdon, an American symbologist who is in Paris for a lecture on the interpretation of symbols, to examine Saunière's body.
Langdon is shown the body and a secret message, readable only by UV light. It contains an out-of-order Fibonacci sequence. Police cryptographer Sophie Neveu, Saunière's granddaughter, says that Fache planted a tracker on him after finding the words "P.S. Find Robert Langdon" at the end of Saunière's secret message. Fache believes that Langdon murdered Saunière. Sophie throws away the tracker, distracting the police while they sneak around the Louvre, finding more clues in Leonardo da Vinci's works. Langdon deduces that Saunière was the grand master of the Priory of Sion.
Silas works for an anonymous person referred to as "The Teacher", along with members of Opus Dei, led by Bishop Aringarosa. He travels to the church as directed by Saunière and finds a marker with "Job 38:11" inscribed in it, the bible verse that begins, "Here you shall come, and no farther..." Enraged, he kills the nun in residence.
Langdon and Sophie travel to a French bank to access Saunière's safe deposit box, using the Fibonacci sequence. Inside is a cryptex, a cylindrical container that contains a message on papyrus. It can only be opened without destroying the contents by turning dials to spell a code word. As the police arrive, bank manager Andre Vernet helps Langdon and Sophie escape, then attempts to steal the cryptex and murder them. Langdon and Sophie escape with it.
They visit Langdon's friend, Sir Leigh Teabing, a Holy Grail expert. He claims that the Grail is not a cup but instead is Mary Magdalene. He says that she was not a prostitute but the wife of Jesus Christ. He believes Mary was pregnant during Jesus' crucifixion, and the Priory was formed to protect their descendants. The Opus Dei have been trying to destroy the Grail to preserve the Vatican's credibility. Later, Silas appears, but Teabing disables him by striking the leg bound by a cilice, in deference to Christ's torture.
The group escapes to London using Teabing's private plane, along with his butler, Remy Jean. Their interpretation of a clue hidden in the cryptex box leads them to the Temple Church, where they find nothing. Remy, claiming to be the Teacher, frees Silas.
Remy takes Teabing hostage, dumping him in the car trunk, and taking Silas to hide in an Opus Dei safe house. Teabing, the actual Teacher, later poisons Remy and sends the police after Silas. Police shoot Silas after he accidentally wounds Aringarosa, who is arrested by Fache, who resents being used to hunt Langdon.
Teabing, wanting to bring down the Church for centuries of persecution and deceit, confronts Langdon and Sophie. Now understanding the true meaning behind the clue to unlocking the cryptex, the trio goes to Westminster Abbey to Isaac Newton's tomb, a former grand master of the Priory. Teabing demands the pair opens the cryptex. Langdon tries and seemingly fails before tossing it into the air. Teabing dives for and catches it, but the vial breaks and the papyrus is thought destroyed.
The police arrive to arrest Teabing, who realizes Langdon must have solved the cryptex's code and removed the papyrus before throwing it. The code was "APPLE", after the apocryphal story of the apple which led Newton to discover his law of universal gravitation. The clue inside the cryptex, which tells of the Grail hiding neath the rose", leads Langdon and Sophie to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.
Inside the chapel, they find a secret room where Magdalene's tomb has been removed. Langdon, after searching through documents, realizes that Sophie's family died in a car crash, that Saunière was not her grandfather but her protector, and that she is the last descendant of Christ. The two are greeted by members of the Priory, including Sophie's grandmother, who promises to protect her. Langdon and Sophie part ways, the former returning to Paris.
While shaving, Langdon cuts himself and has an epiphany when his blood curves down the sink, reminding him of the Rose Line. Realizing the true meaning of the cryptex clue, he follows the line to the Louvre, concluding that the Grail is hidden below the Pyramide Inversée. Langdon kneels atop it; Mary Magdalene's sarcophagus is in a secret underground chamber.
Cast
Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu / Princess Sophie Saint-Clair Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing Alfred Molina as Bishop Aringarosa Jürgen Prochnow as André Vernet Jean Reno as Police Captain Bezu Fache Paul Bettany as Silas Hugh Mitchell as young Silas Étienne Chicot as Lieutenant Jérôme Collet Jean-Yves Berteloot as Remy Jean Jean-Pierre Marielle as Jacques Saunière Charlotte Graham as Mary Magdalene Seth Gabel as Michael the Cleric Marie-Françoise Audollent as Sister Sandrine Francesco Carnelutti as Prefect Rita Davies as Sophie's grandmother Denis Podalydès as Flight Controller Author Dan Brown and his wife make cameos (forefront) in the first scene of the book signing scene. The Templar Revelation authors Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince make a brief appearance as passengers on a bus. Two actors, Sam Mancuso and Andre Lillis, are credited with playing the untitled "Pope" character.
Production Development The film rights to Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code (2003) were purchased from Brown for $6 million. Bill Paxton was the director Ron Howard's first choice for the role of Robert Langdon, but had to decline as he was beginning filming for the television series Big Love. Howard approached Ricky Gervais for the role of Remy Jean, but he turned it down due to the fear of him ruining the film. Akiva Goldsman wrote the screenplay for the film, Goldsman previously worked with Howard on A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Cinderella Man (2005).
Filming Filming had been scheduled to start in May 2005; however, some delays caused filming to begin on June 30, 2005.
The filmmakers shot many of the inside scenes at Pinewood Studios;"Gordon Brown Opens Underwater Stage at Pinewood Studios", May 19, 2005 the opening sequence in the cavernous 007 Stage at Pinewood Shepperton, where the interior of the Louvre was re-created. In this sequence, Hanks' character is taken by French police to the Louvre, where a dead body has been discovered. David White of Altered States FX, a prosthetics and special make-up effects company, was tasked with creating a naked photorealistic silicone body for the scene. Lighting effects were used to obscure the body's genitalia; a technique also used on television programs such as NCIS.
Pinewood's state-of-the-art Underwater Stage was used to film underwater sequences. The stage opened in 2005 after four years of planning and development. The water in the tank is filtered using an ultraviolet system, which creates crystal clear water, and the water is maintained at to create a comfortable environment to work in for both cast and crew.
Alternative versions of Bettany's nude flagellation scenes were shot, in which he wears a black loincloth. Clips of these versions appear in the History Channel's Opus Dei Unveiled documentary, broadcast in summer 2006.
Location The Louvre gave permission to film relevant scenes on its premises. A replica of the Mona Lisa was used during filming as the crew was not allowed to illuminate the original work with its lighting. During the on-site filming at the Louvre, the Mona Lisas chamber was used as a storage room. Westminster Abbey denied the use of its premises, as did the church of Saint-Sulpice. The Westminster Abbey scenes were instead filmed at Lincoln and Winchester cathedrals, which both belong to the Church of England. (Westminster Abbey is a Royal Peculiar, a church or chapel under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch, while Saint-Sulpice is a Roman Catholic institution.)
Due to the denial of a location permit for Saint-Sulpice, the entire scene had to be re-created virtually by post-production company Rainmaker U.K. and though the set had been partially built, the coordinates were centimeters out from what the compositors had expected and so the entire process was extremely difficult to complete.
Lincoln Cathedral reportedly received £100,000 in exchange for the right to film there; filming took place August 15–19, 2005, mainly within the cloisters of the cathedral. The cathedral's bell, which strikes the hour, was silent for the first time since World War II during that time. Although it remained a closed set, protesters led by a 61-year-old woman named Sister Mary Michael demonstrated against the filming. She spent 12 hours praying on her knees outside the cathedral in protest against what she saw as the blasphemous use of a holy place to film a book containing heresy.
Winchester Cathedral answered criticism by using its location fee to fund an exhibition, lecture series, and campaign to debunk the book. The scenes for the Pope's summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, were filmed on location at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, England.
Shoreham Airport in West Sussex, England, was used as a filming location, with its art-deco terminal building used in a night shoot for the scenes at Le Bourget Airport.