I gotta to go to LA to take care of some business this afternoon, but holy crap! Ooops I probably shouldn’t say that when the pope is in the subject. According to Timesonline, The Vatican has banned the filming of Ron Howard’s upcoming movie adaptation ANGELS & DEMONS inside the Vatican or in any of the Catholic churches in Rome
Party pooper! Boo!
I’m a big fan of Dan Brown’s novels and I admit, his novels make Catholic Church look bad, but first of all it’s fiction, and second of all, if you’re the book, then you’d know that it’s actually just about one man’s personal vendetta, a grudge against what happened to him years ago. I’m not going to spoil much, but the point is… hey, Vatican.. Lighten up, man!
This is like that time when people kept e-mailing me, asking me to boycott The Love Guru.
This is what Timesonline reported…
The Vatican has banned the makers of Angels & Demons, the latest Dan Brown thriller to be filmed, from shooting scenes not only in the Vatican but in any church in Rome on the ground that it is “an offence against God” and “wounds common religious feelings”.
Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, head of the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, said that the author had “turned the Gospels upside down to poison the faith. It would be unacceptable to transform churches into film sets so that his blasphemous novels can be made into mendacious films in the name of business.”
Father Marco Fibbi, spokesman for the diocese of Rome, said: “Normally we read the script, but this time it was not necessary. The name Dan Brown was enough.” The Vatican fiercely condemned both the novel The Da Vinci Code and its film version, which starred Tom Hanks as the Harvard professor Robert Langdon.
Hanks also stars in Angels & Demons which, like The Da Vinci Code, is directed by Ron Howard. Published before The Da Vinci Code — which suggested that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and had children — Angels & Demons revolves around a plot by a sinister elite known as The Illuminati to seize control of the papacy during a conclave to elect a new Pope.
Key scenes are set in the Vatican and two Rome churches, Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria. In both churches cardinals are murdered and mutilated with mysterious marks and symbols. Father Antonio Truda, parish priest at Santa Maria del Popolo, said that there was “no question” of allowing scenes to be shot there. “It’s bad enough having to put up with tour guides explaining the scene to tourists,” he said.
Vatican officials said that they had been unable to prevent the filmakers shooting exterior shots of St Peter’s and the surrounding medieval streets of the Borgo, with the permission of the local borough council. However the marble halls and staircases of the former Royal Palace at Caserta near Naples are having to be used to double for Vatican interiors.
