BTW, at the Yahoo Buzz Index it was a down day for movies. Everything went down, even OTH declined slightly. Except.......TDVC. It's up to 86. That makes it the #12 search on yahoo overall, something unheard of for anything not Star Wars or Harry Potter. It should become the #1 over the weekend at this pace. Incredible.

It would've been #1 anyways.. Not to often does a new release not capture the #1 spot for the weekend.. It happens but not often..

#1 overall at yahoo buzz. You know, ahead of Paris Hilton, Jessica Alba, American Idol etc.

Davinci Code is not being screened for critics in the Uk.....

Is this because they want to keep it secret?
Or are the not screening for critics in a PG-13 Horror kinda way?

Please tell me it's because they want to keep it secret?

I suspect its the PG13 Horror movie kinda way. I mean everyone knows that the film is about - so there's nothing to keep secret apart from the apparently embaressing addidtions to what was in the book

The rating has nothing to do with SONY keeping this a secret.. It boils down to SONY probably being fed up with the internet spoiling every movie released nowadays and they want to keep the element of surprise intact..

a 3.36 IM (based on friday number) on Da Vinci, no way. I would think a 2.8 or so. OTH may get a 3.4+.

Rottentomatoes now has 6 pretty horrible reviews, and only one positive.. I'm worried!!

disaster

Critics paint ugly picture of a broken 'Code'

BY LEO STANDORA
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER


Tom Hanks in 'The Da Vinci Code.'

"The Da Vinci Code," this year's most hotly anticipated flick, failed to catch fire with critics at the Cannes Film Festival last night.
Most offered only lukewarm praise or shrugs of indifference.

Others laughed or jeered at parts of the nearly 2-1/2-hour thriller and dumped on star Tom Hanks' performance as well as what they called a potboiler script.

The movie, based on Dan Brown's monster best-selling novel about a coverup of secrets surrounding Christianity's roots, will have its world premiere at Cannes today. It opens here Friday.

Variety, the movie industry's bible, called the film " a stodgy, grim thing" in a review posted on its Web site last night.

Peter Brunette, critic for The Boston Globe, described Hanks as "a zombie" but praised co-star Ian McKellen.

"It was really disappointing. The dialogue was cheesy. The acting wasn't too bad, but the film is not as good as the book," chimed in Lina Hamchaoui, from British radio IRN.

"Nothing really works. It's not suspenseful. It's not romantic. It's certainly not fun," according to Stephen Schaefer of the Boston Herald.

The Cannes audience of critics - arguably the toughest in the world - clearly grew restless as the movie dragged on to a long sequence of anticlimactic revelations.

"I kept thinking of the Energizer Bunny, because it kept going and going and going, and not in a good way," said James Rocchi, a film critic for CBS 5 television in San Francisco.

One especially melodramatic line uttered by Hanks drew prolonged laughter and some catcalls, and the audience continued to titter for much of the film's remainder.

Some people walked out during the movie's closing minutes, and while credits rolled, there were a few whistles and hisses - but none of the scattered applause even bad movies sometimes receive at Cannes.

Still, Fox News movie reviewer Roger Friedman said the movie was mostly "enticing" and predicted McKellen nailed himself an Oscar nomination for his performance.

The Times of London also called Paul Bettany "an absolute peach" for his portrayal of the albino monk, Silas.

He chases Hanks and co-star Audrey Tautou "across Europe with a gun in one hand, and a whip to flagellate himself in private in the other. I've rarely seen an actor have more fun," The Times reviewer said.


With News Wire Services

If I had a dime for every summer movie that got bad reviews and went on to a large gross, I'd have a lot of dimes!

1. Over the Hedge - $39 million
2. Da Vinci Code - $37 million
3. Mission Impossible 3 - $12.8 million
4. Poseidon - $10.6 million
5. RV - $5.4 million
6. See No Evil - $3.5 million
7. Just My Luck - $3 million
8. An American Haunting - $2 million
9. United 93 - $2 million
10. Stick It - 1.7

This marks my first entry into the derby in well over a year!

I hope it's a good one with that DVC prediction

Mark my words... come sunday evening you will all kneel before Snrub's mighty predicting powers.

Jesus, that Cannes report sucks....Ah well i think it will still be massive.

While looking through all these Cannes reports....i seen a massive building banner for Dreamgirls! Nice, can't wait for this.

The overraction to the reviews reminds me of Man on Fire and National Treasure.

By overreaction I mean that there was a reaction. There shouldn't be, at the BO reviews alone are meaningless.

Interesting that See No Evil is on the Yahoo! Buzz Chart with a decent score of 7. Nothing to be excited about, but An American Haunting also showed up around this time two weeks ago and that did a little better than expected.

Here is the problem with the Da Vinci Code and it's bad reviews;

Before the reviews started trickling in, I thought that it had a good shot at 100 million. Now it has a very slim one.

Okay, so the ppl who read the book will be out in full force this weekend. But that alone will not bring it to 100 million. If it ever had hopes of opening to 100 million, it had to draw as many non-readers as it did readers.

Now, the book has sold over 60 million copies WW. Let's say for the sake of arguement that 25-30 million of those were sold in North America. Of that 25-30 million, only about half will come out for it on opening weekend. That's somewhere between 10-15 million people. That makes for a huge opening (like 70 million), but it needed an equal amount of non-readers to come out opening weekend. The non-readers are more likely to stay away from it if it receives bad reviews, especially since there is another big film opening this weekend with good reviews. So I think it's shot at 100 million went out the window when the bad reviews started coming in.

On the other hand, I think Over the Hedge's stock has risen quite a bit over the past few weeks, and it has a chance at really surprising this weekend (to like, Ice Age 2 numbers)

Right now I have Da Vinci at 70, and Over the Hedge at 40, but I would be thrilled to see both add 10-15 million to their totals.. it would make for a much more interesting Memorial day weekend!

do you really think half of the adults who read the book are gonna be so hard core they will go out opening weekend, fight the crowds, possibly have to sit in the front few rows?????????

What you are forgetting is that number only account for the people who actually bought the book, not read it. For example, my dad bought and read the book, then passed it on to my mom who read it and then passed it on to me, who read it and passed it on to my boyfriend. Now, obviously not everyone is going to share books, but there are a lot of people who do, so the number of people that have read the book might just be twice as much as the figure sold. In reality then, that 10-15 million people is only about a quarter of the people who have read the book, and yes, I do believe lots of people will rush out to see their fav. book adapted into the movies. Every Harry Potter openiong weekend is proof of that, regardless of whether or not they are adults...

Long lineups didn't keep the adults of America away from the Passion of the Christ on opening weekend...

You forgot to mention libraries, a way many people probably read the novel.

How much do you think it will do?

BTW, are you writing the May 19-21 Weekend Prediction article?

Around $3-4 million this weekend, probably.

And no, that's xiayun, I think.

WWE has been very high on the yahoo search and buzz chart. I think it probably has alot to do with wrestling fans searching for it and jacking up the score

after reading all the articles posted today, I am starting to think that Sony shot themselves in the foot bringing the pic to Cannes. You simply can't bring a bad movie to the festival.. The bad press won't be good for the film..

If enough of them see the movie it'll do decently. The film I see as a good comparison is Rob Zombie's 'The Devil's Rejects' because both have their fans from a different medium/outlet who will see the movie and make it perform decently, if only for a weekend.