The Publicity Game

Ian McKellen is skilled at public relations and marketing.

He's managing to take attention away from the lackluster and some overtly hostile reviews of The Da Vinci Code by making some notable statements.

McKellen seems to be enjoying taking shots at Christianity and Catholicism in particular.

Sir Ian accused the "powerful" people condemning The Da Vinci Code movie of snobbery towards cinema-goers, and said he thought the Catholic Church would like the film's central idea, that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, because it offered proof that Jesus was not gay.

The actor admitted that after he read Dan Brown's best-selling book he thought it was "codswallop".

Sir Ian said: "When I read the book I believed it entirely. I thought Leigh Teabing had answered his case very convincingly indeed.

"When I put the book down I thought 'What a load of potential codswallop'. "That's still going on in my mind. But I'm very happy to believe that Jesus was married.

"I know that the Catholic Church has problems with gay people and I thought that this was absolute truth that Jesus was not gay."

Obviously, McKellen has an axe to grind. He seems very troubled.

At the premiere, director Ron Howard commented on the awful reviews the film is getting. He said something that I find impossible to believe.

The director defended the film when he was asked about the bad reviews at today's press conference, saying: "I haven't read any of the reviews and I don't know if there are any other adjectives in any of the others that might be different, maybe slightly more upbeat."

Talk about living in a bubble!

If I made a movie, I would be interested in knowing how people are reacting to my work. Is this a Clintonian parsing of words evasion? Certainly, Howard must be aware of the reviews even if he didn't do the actual reading.

I think the "I haven't read the reviews" tactic is a convenient way for Howard to avoid the issue and pretend that the movie isn't being panned.

I guess people deal with adversity in different ways. McKellen responds to the rotten reviews with an ugly lashing out at the Catholic Church, while Howard prefers to live in a state of denial.

It's sort of interesting to watch the posturing, probably more entertaining than The Da Vinci Code.

I suspect that the studio is confident The Da Vinci Code will still be a big hit, but the execs must be questioning just how big it will be.

All of the positively disastrous reviews have to impact the box office a bit.

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Roger Ebert gives the movie a thumbs up.

Hmmm. Strange.

That's a mystery worth unraveling.