Director Ron Howard has always shown an aptitude at creating handsome-looking, unchallenging, middlebrow movies that satisfied critics and audiences alike. So it's not surprising that the overwhelming criticism launched at Howard and his Da Vinci Code, accusing him of not only execrating Christ's name, but of doing it in the most boring way imaginable, has weighed heavily on the affable people pleaser. With one eye on the bottom line of his opening weekend, Howard chucks his "reverse psychology" strategy of telling audiences to skip the movie, and tries the opposite approach:

Director Ron Howard has been soft-shoeing around the growing uproar over his controversial new movie, The Da Vinci Code. (We hear it has something to do with the fact that it's just a thinly veiled retread of What's Love Got To Do With It?, with Jesus recast in the Ike Turner role.) So leave it to star Ian McKellen to dismiss Matt Lauer's questions of whether or not the movie requires a disclaimer by insisting Christianity's shoddy source material needs a disclaimer instead. From Us Weekly's blog: