HOLLYWOOD - Director Ron Howard was thrilled when French President Jacques Chirac allowed him to film The Da Vinci Code in Parisian gallery La Louvre--but he was then restricted at every turn.
La Louvre was the ideal location for the opening of the movie because it houses Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece Mona Lisa, which is instrumental to the story.
But the crew had to be painstakingly careful on the site, ensuring no lights were shone on any of the antique masterpieces, and many elements of the script had to be adapted.
Howard says, "We had to be very specific about every single shot we were going to do, both for security and for preservation reasons.
"There were all kinds of things we couldn't do. In the script, there is blood on the floor but we couldn't do that, and obviously we couldn't take paintings off the walls."
Appeal Upholds Brown's ‘Da Vinci’ Plagiarism Innocence
The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown has again been cleared of allegations he breached copyright and plagiarized the bestseller's plot, this time in New York City.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling made last August that Brown didn't steal from writer Lewis Perdue's novels The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000).
Earlier this month, Brown was found not guilty of plagiarism, in London's High Court. In that case, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh had insisted Brown ripped off their 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
Director Ron Howard's movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, is due out next month.
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