The Da Vinci Code scored $224-million worldwide and topped the North American box office in its weekend debut as the controversial film overcame bad reviews and calls for boycotts, early figures showed on Sunday.
The film, highly anticipated by fans of Dan Brown’s best-selling novel and vigorously criticised by religious groups, raked in $77-million dollars in North America, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
Around the world, director Ron Howard’s $125-million thriller, starring Tom Hanks, raked in an estimated $224-million, Exhibitor Relations said.
It was the fourth biggest worldwide opening, according to Daily Variety, the top Hollywood trade paper. Only Star Wars: Episode III, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and War of the Worlds did better.
The Sony Pictures film is already the greatest commercial success for Howard and Hanks, according to Exhibitor Relations. Hanks’ previous biggest opening weekend was for Toy Story 2, which made $57,4-million dollars in its 1999 opening.
The film sparked calls for boycotts around the world by groups angry at the movie’s story of a Vatican cover-up of Jesus Christ’s marriage to Mary Magdalene and the couple’s daughter.
One group bought a full-page advertisement in USA Today, a mass-circulation national newspaper, to denounce the film, while others urged followers to stage protests.
”Never in the history of filmmaking has the memory of our Lord Jesus Christ and the faith of all Christians been so explicitly targeted, insulted and mocked on such a worldwide scale,” said Marc Balestrieri, president of De Fide, a non-profit religious group.
Many film critics found that the film fell well short of expectations. Daily Variety savaged the movie as a ”stodgy, grim thing”.
The Washington Post described it as ”about as thrilling as watching your parents do a Sudoku puzzle”.
But experts had predicted that filmgoers would ignore the bad reviews and protests.
”There are so many people already familiar with the book, and eager to see the visual version of the book that they like,” said ticket sales specialist Gitesh Pandya of the website Boxofficeguru.com.
”Overall I still think it will have a gigantic opening weekend all over the world, because there’s so much media hype and curiosity all around the world,” he said last week.
Final box office figures are due Monday.
In second place in the weekly rankings was Over The Hedge with ticket sales of $37,3-million. Bruce Willis provides the voice of a wily raccoon in the animated comedy.
Displaced from the top spot, Mission: Impossible III fell to third place with ticket receipts of $11-million, followed in fourth spot by Poseidon, a remake of the 1972 shipwreck movie The Poseidon Adventure, with sales of $9,2-million.
In fifth place was the family comedy RV with $5,1-million, followed in sixth place by See No Evil with $4,4-million.
Just My Luck garnered an estimated $3,4-million in ticket receipts, while An American Haunting brought in $1,7-million in weekend earnings in eighth place.
United 93, about the doomed flight of a hijacked airliner on September 11, 2001 was ninth with $1,4-million, followed in 10th place by Akeelah And The Bee with sales of $1-million.
The top 12 grossing films made an estimated $153,2-million, down 2,8% from the $157,6-million over the same weekend last year. But they were up 80% over the $85-million made last weekend. – AFP
