NEW YORK — The makers of "The Da Vinci Code" opened their film this month despite protests from a historically powerful institution, which labeled the Sony Pictures effort "a provocation" and "spirit-lowering tripe."
The institution was the news media, specifically the critics, who gave a C-plus to an A-list enterprise that included Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. Sony Pictures did not treat the press much better, making minimal accommodations for reviewers, skipping the usual advance screenings and requiring critics to wait for a screening in Cannes the night before the film was released.
Maybe the filmmakers knew what they were doing. "The Da Vinci Code" collected $231.8 million in opening-day ticket sales worldwide. The critics might have had some latent influence, too. Ticket sales for "The Da Vinci Code" fell 66 percent on Friday from a week earlier, the date it opened in the United States and many other countries, according to Box Office Guru. But some of that decline may have been a result of the opening Friday of "X-Men: The Last Stand."
"The Da Vinci Code," with more than 60 million copies of the book sold and a controversy all over the Web about the religious implications of its plot, did not lack publicity before its release.
But three recent movies that were the top openers in their respective weekends this year - "When a Stranger Calls," "Underworld: Evolution" and Tyler Perry's "Madea's Family Reunion" - were never even screened for reviewers, going directly to audiences without pausing for critics' opinion.
According to The Associated Press, 12 movies in the first three months of the year bypassed critics, compared with two last year. Since then, "Silent Hill" took the stealth route to a weekend box office victory, and last week, even though critics did not see "See No Evil," plenty of filmgoers did. Some movies have been labeled critic-proof, but vast swaths of the industry now seem interested in heading to the market without accommodating film reviewers.
The shrinking list of movies scheduled for review is just one more indication that the long marriage between print and film seems to have hit a midlife crisis. Historically, the movie business has supplied stars and stories for newspapers - not to mention almost $1 billion a year in advertising - and newspapers returned the favor by promoting and reviewing movies.
But the dialogue over films has increasingly gone digital. Long before a movie review comes out, young people are text-messaging friends during the first showing of a movie about how disappointing or how must-see it is. Even among adults, the time-honored practice of perusing large-print newspaper ads and then checking the fine print for listings has been replaced by clicking on the Web.
When he first took hold of the newly formed AOL Time Warner in 2000, Steve Case talked of the day when companies could open movies without buying significant print ads. That never came to pass, but now a new division of Fox Film Entertainment aimed at teenagers, Fox Atomic, will produce eight films a year without a print budget.
Of course, the embrace of the new has led to some hurt feelings on the part of Hollywood's old flame. After years of trying to rise above the clutter of releases by increasing print advertising, and enriching newspapers in the process, the industry cut back newspaper advertising last year. It fell $60 million compared with the previous year, its first decline in five years, according to TNS Media Intelligence, a market research firm.
In part, Hollywood is taking some hard lessons from the music industry, which saw the threat but not the opportunity that the Web presented. "Snakes on a Plane," a New Line Cinema movie starring Samuel L. Jackson and many reptiles, has become a cult classic on the Web months before its release in August. SnakesonaBlog.com, conceived by Brian Finkelstein, a Georgetown law student, has had 500,000 visitors and has become a maypole of kitsch and speculation about the movie.
"It is an Internet meme," Finkelstein said. "It is funny and very quickly understood, a simple joke with broad appeal."
The movie is benefiting from a huge no-cost push, and New Line is doing more than getting out of the way. It spent a seven-figure sum on an elaborate Web site of its own and, more unusually, shot new scenes integrating some of the suggestions ricocheting around the Web.
The sometimes rocky marriage of Hollywood and the press is not completely over. Particularly during awards season, the ego needs of big-time actors and directors are often sated by a certain size ad in a certain sort of newspaper. But newspapers, which increased rates for movie advertising as other categories fell apart after the dot-com bust, may be partly to blame for the prospect of a paperless movie industry.
"I know everyone is trying to make it come true because the cost of print ads could be considered extortion in some jurisdictions," said Mark Cuban, who founded 2929 Entertainment, which produces, distributes and exhibits a variety of films. "Every distributor wants to find the best promotional mix away from traditional media and get a far greater bang for their buck. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has found it yet. Whoever does will have Hollywood gold in their hands."
