The producer and stars of the The Da Vinci Code have shrugged off a barrage of bad reviews, providing a controversial opening for the 59th Cannes Film Festival.
Director Ron Howard and leading actors Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou were all smiles, along with other stars Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Alfred Molina and Paul Bettany as they paraded up the red carpet steps for the opening ceremony.
Accompanying them was author Dan Brown, whose best-selling novel has taken the world by storm, selling around 50 million copies and translated into 44 languages since it was first published in 2003.
Earlier Howard brushed aside savage criticisms from some of the industry's toughest movie critics, who panned the film version as verging on dull after getting the first glimpse of the film.
"I haven't read any of the reviews, and I don't know ... if any of the others might be slightly more upbeat," Howard told a packed press conference.
"I've made a lot of commercial films and I really stopped prognosticating a long time ago," he added.
A preview of the US$125 million film billed as a "thrilling murder investigation that unearths the biggest cover-up in human history" was greeted by disappointed whistles and snickers from some 2,000 journalists.
Daily Variety, the top Hollywood trade magazine, gave it a blistering review, saying the novel "has become a stodgy, grim thing in its exceedingly literal-minded film version".
Hanks, who plays symbologist Robert Langdon who sets off to solve the 2,000-year-old mystery, also shrugged off the controversy triggered by the film's central theory that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and had children whose bloodline continues to this day.
Hanks said: "There's no doubt about it that it is controversial to a degree, but I think .. context is all. People who think things are true might be more dangerous than those who ponder the possibilities."
Religious protests
The Indian government is to decide on Thursday whether to permit screening the film amid mounting protests by Christian groups.
Protesters have taken legal action against national censor board officials for clearing the movie and the Mumbai-based Catholic Secular Forum Christian has filed a petition to the court also seeking a ban on releasing the film in India.
Religious leaders in heavily Christian Kenya also joined the international chorus of disapproval.
Dismissing the much-hyped Hollywood production as morally corrupt, clergymen condemned the movie as a vile mixture of outright fiction, half-truths and volatile spiritual matters.
"I am totally against this movie and the book itself," said pastor Sam Gichinga of Nairobi's New Apostolic Church.
French representatives of the Catholic Church also attended Wednesday's premiere which was repeated across France before being released across Europe on Thursday and in the United States on Friday.
But one senior Church official heaved a sigh of relief after catching the preview saying the movie was so unbelievable it poses no threat to their faith.
"There's nothing to get whipped up about even for a member of the Opus Dei," said Marc Aellen, secretary general of a Catholic cinema association.
And Ian McKellen, who plays Holy Grail expert Leigh Teabing, said movie fans could take from the film and the book what they liked.
"When I read the book I believed it entirely. I believed Leigh Teabing argued his case very convincingly, and clever Dan Brown for twisting my mind in the right direction," he said.
"And when I put the book down I thought what a load of potential codswallop," said the openly gay actor, before getting the biggest laugh of the day by saying at least the theory could lay to rest any lingering doubts that Jesus Christ was gay.
Audiences in Paris were also less savage in their reactions then the critics.
"It was one of the best films I have ever seen seen. I consider myself privileged to have seen the film here in Paris," enthused Marla, 57-year-old Californian tourist.
"It was totally fantastic. We just saw the Louvre yesterday so we had a real connection," said Sardar Pathan, a 52-year-old Indian tourist. "It makes more sense to see it in Paris than anywhere else."